Activated carbon from avocado seed as sorbent phase for microextraction technologies: activation, characterization,...

Area of Science:

• Green Analytical Chemistry
• Materials Science
• Environmental Science

Background:

• Agricultural byproducts are valuable due to their lignocellulosic origin, offering biodegradable and inexpensive sorbent phases.
• Sustainable sorbent development is crucial for advancing green analytical chemistry principles.
• Avocado seed, an abundant agricultural byproduct, has not been previously explored as a sorbent material.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the potential of avocado seed and its activated carbon as sustainable sorbent materials for solid-phase microextraction.
• To optimize the preparation of avocado seed activated carbon (AC) for enhanced extraction efficiency.
• To evaluate the performance of avocado seed AC in rotating disk sorptive extraction (RDSE) for pharmaceutical analytes.

Main Methods:

• Avocado seed activated carbon was prepared using zinc chloride as an activating agent at 600 °C.
• Rotating disk sorptive extraction (RDSE) was employed as the model technology.
• Gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used for analyte analysis.

Main Results:

• Activated carbon prepared at 600 °C with a 1:1.2 impregnation ratio (ZnCl2) exhibited superior extraction efficiency.
• Characterization revealed increased surface area and pore volume in activated carbon compared to raw avocado seed, indicating pore filling and π-π stacking as primary interactions.
• Optimal RDSE conditions achieved limits of detection of 0.23 and 0.07 µg L⁻¹ and recoveries of 81% and 91% for ibuprofen and 1-hydroxy-ibuprofen, respectively.

Conclusions:

• Avocado seed activated carbon is a viable and sustainable alternative to commercial sorbent materials like Oasis® HLB and C18 for RDSE.
• The developed method offers high sensitivity and efficiency for the extraction of pharmaceutical compounds.
• This study highlights the potential of utilizing agricultural waste for developing eco-friendly analytical tools.