Determination of BTEX Compounds in Contaminated Water Using the Novel Vacuum-Assisted-Total Vaporization SPME Method and GO-APTES Fiber

A novel and reliable microextraction technique was used for the fast determination of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX) from contaminated water without any extra steps for the preparation or extraction of the aqueous sample. Vacuum-assisted-total vaporization-solid-phase microextraction (SPME) eliminated one of the partitioning steps in conventional headspace SPME and caused an increase in the sensitivity and speed of the method. A home-made graphene oxide/3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane nanocomposite SPME fiber was synthesized and used as the extraction phase for efficient extraction. Several crucial parameters were optimized, such as the vaporization time and temperature, extraction time and desorption conditions. At the optimum experimental conditions, a linear wide range calibration curve over a wide range of 1-5,000 ng mL-1 and a relative standard deviation (n = 6) of 6.6-7.3% were obtained. The result of the determination of BTEX as a human health risk from real samples, using the proposed method, revealed an acceptable agreement with a valid method.