Alginate Incorporated Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Dispersive Micro Solid Phase Extraction Sorbent for Selective and Efficient Separation of Acidic Drugs in Water Samples

Abstract

Innovative development of a simple and rapid dispersive micro solid phase extraction (D-?-SPE) method combined with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) based on alginate incorporated with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Alg-MWCNT) was developed for the analysis of five selected acidic drugs in the water sample. The effect of dispersive micro solid phase extraction parameters such as the mass of sorbent, sample pH, extraction time and desorption time on the peak area of analytes were optimized. Under the optimum extraction conditions, a linear response was achieved in the concentration range of 1 ?g.L-1 to 500 ?g.L-1 (R2 ? 0.9959). The limits of detection for the method at a signal to noise ratio of 3 were between 0.03 ?g.L-1 and 0.08 ?g.L-1. The proposed method was successfully applied for the determination of four acidic drugs in tap water samples with relative recoveries ranging from 75 % to 105 %. The proposed Alg-MWCNT sorbent showed high potential as an alternative sorbent for dispersive micro solid phase extraction of acidic drugs in aqueous matrices.

Keywords

• multi-walled carbon nanotubes, acidic drugs, micro solid phase extraction, alginate