Accordion-like Ti₃C₂T_x MXene nanosheets as a high-performance solid phase microextraction adsorbent for determination...

Two dimensional accordion-like Ti₃C₂T_x MXene, where T_x represents surface termination groups such as -OH, -O-, and -F, is synthesized by selective etching of aluminum layers from Ti₃AlC₂. This manuscript reports on the adsorption of organic molecules from head-space and aqueous environments containing Ti₃C₂T_x, a representative of the MXene family. Ti₃C₂T_x coated by gluing method on a stainless steel wire was successfully utilized as a highly sensitive and stable head-space solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber. A SPME method with the MXene as the adsorbent combined with gas chromatography with MS detector was used to determine the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples. Low detection limits in the range of 0.2-5 ng L^-1, wide linearity and good reproducibility (RSD = 4.6 to 7.4% for n = 6) under the optimized extraction conditions was achieved. Finally, the MXene coated fiber was successfully used for the determination of PAHs in real water samples. The relative recoveries for six PAHs are from 91.3-105.0%, which proved the applicability of the method. Also, melamine was selected as a polar analyte and it has been shown that Ti₃C₂T_x MXene has good capability in extraction of melamine (the extraction recovery for melamine = 80.1%) from aqueous media by dispersive micro solid-phase extraction. Graphical abstractTwo dimensional accordion-like Ti₃C₂ MXene was synthesized by selective etching of aluminum layers from Ti₃AlC₂. Ti₃C₂ MXene was employed as solid phase microextraction fiber coating for the extraction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from water samples.