Ionic liquid combined with carbon nanotubes: a soft material for the preconcentration of PAHs

The combination of ionic liquids with carbon nanotubes has opened a new possibility of ionic liquids as modifiers for carbon nanotubes. Upon being ground into ionic liquids, carbon nanotube bundles are untangled, and the resultant fine bundles form a network structure. This is due to the possible specific interaction between the imidazolium ion component and the p-electronic nanotube surface. The resultant soft material has a high capacity to adsorb/absorb analytes from samples. In this work, the soft material was prepared by mixing 15 mg of carbon nanotubes with 300 μL of IL. The soft material was immobilized on cotton fibers to perform the preconcentration of aromatic compounds such as PAHs from river water samples. The most important fact is the synergic effect between the ionic liquid and the carbon nanotubes which results in a high capacity to preconcentrate analytes. In fact, the sorption capacity of 15 mg of the soft material containing 0.55 mg of MWNT and 11 μl of IL is two times higher than the capacity of 15 mg of MWNT and 3.7 times higher than that of 100 μl IL.