Magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction based on graphene oxide/Fe3 O4 @polythionine nanocomposite followed by atomic absorption spectrometry for zinc monitoring in water, flour, celery and egg.

BACKGROUND: Magnetic graphene oxide nanocomposite has been proposed as a promising and sustainable sorbent for the extraction and separation of target analytes from food matrices. Sample preparation based on nanocomposite presents several advantages, such as desired efficiency, reasonable selectivity and high surface-area-to-volume ratio.

RESULTS: A new graphene oxide/Fe3 O4 @polythionine (GO/Fe3 O4 @PTh) nanocomposite sorbent was introduced for magnetic dispersive solid-phase extraction and flame atomic absorption spectrometric detection of zinc(II) in water, flour, celery and egg. To fabricate the sorbent, an oxidative polymerization of thionine on the surface of magnetic GO was applied, while polythionine was simply employed as a surface modifier to improve extraction yield. The properties of the sorbent were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, vibrating sample magnetometry and Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy. The calibration curve showed linearity in the range of 0.5-30 ng mL-1 . Limits of detection (S/N = 3) and quantification (S/N = 10) were 0.08 and 0.5 ng mL-1 , respectively.

CONCLUSION: The method was applied for trace-level determination of Zn(II) in water and food samples, and its validation was investigated by recovery experiments and analyzing certified reference material. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.