Liquid-Phase Microextraction Combined with Hollow Fiber as a Sample Preparation Technique Prior to Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry

Two modes of liquid-phase microextraction (LPME) combined with hollow fiber (HF) were developed for gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Both methodologies, that is, static LPME with HF and dynamic LPME with HF, involved the use of a small volume of organic solvent impregnated in the hollow fiber, which was held by the needle of a conventional GC syringe. In static LPME/HF, the hollow fiber impregnated with solvent was immersed in the aqueous sample, and the extraction processed under stirring; in dynamic LPME/HF, the solvent was repeatedly withdrawn into and discharged from the hollow fiber by a syringe pump. This is believed to be the first reported instance of a semiautomated liquid microextraction procedure. The performance of the two techniques was demonstrated in the analysis of two PAH compounds in an aqueous sample. Static LPME/HF provided ∼35-fold enrichment in 10 min and good reproducibility (∼4%). Dynamic LPME/HF could provide higher enrichment (∼75-fold) in 10 min and even better reproducibility (∼3%). Both methods allow the direct transfer of extracted analytes to a GC/MS system for analysis.