Evaluation of carbon foam as an adsorbent in stir-bar supported micro-solid-phase extraction coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for the determination of polyaromatic hydrocarbons in wastewater samples

In this work, a low-cost sorbent namely “carbon foam” was synthesized and calcined by a single step reaction. The mixture of precursors (sucrose and zinc nitrate) was heated under a nitrogen environment inside a furnace using a pre-defined temperature programming. The morphological features of the resulting material were revealed by field emission scanning electron microscopy. The material was further utilized for stir-bar supported membrane protected micro-solid-phase extraction (SB-μ-SPE) of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples. The extracted analytes were quantified using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry. The performance of SB-μ-SPE was optimized by using a univariate approach. This method provided a good linear relationship for extraction of the PAHs, and R² values ranged from 0.9986 to 0.9994. Detection limits were ranged from 0.29 to 8.4 ng/ mL. Relative standard deviation values were calculated at various concentrations and ranged between 3.8 and 10.9%.