Determination of alkylphenols and bisphenol-A: A comparative investigation of functional polymer-coated membrane microextraction and solid-phase microextraction techniques

Abstract

A functional polymer (hydroxylated polymethacrylate) coated on porous polysulfone hollow fiber membrane (PS-HFM) was used as an adsorbent for the extraction of alkylphenols and bisphenol-A from seawater samples. Analyses of the extracts were performed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) after injection-port derivatization using bis(trimethylsilyl)trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA). We term the procedure as polymer-coated hollow fiber microextraction (PC-HFME). Owing to high porosity PS-HFM coated with hydroxylated polymer showed high extraction efficiency. Compared with solid-phase microextraction (SPME), PC-HFME showed good selectivity and sensitivity. Detection limits of alkylphenols and bisphenol-A ranged between 0.07 and 2.34 ng l-1. The linearity range was from 0.01 to 15 μg l-1 and the correlation coefficient (r) up to 0.997. The sensitivity and selectivity of the coated HFM could be potentially tuned by changing the characteristics of the coated hydroxylated polymer. The PC-HFME procedure was applied to the detection of alkylphenols and bisphenol-A in the coastal waters of Singapore. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.