Nitro-oxidized carboxycellulose nanofibers from moringa plant: effective bioadsorbent for mercury removal

Cellulose - Mercury contamination in drinking water is a worldwide problem due to its severely harming effects on the human body. A nanostructured natural bioadsorbent, carboxycellulose nanofiber...     

A review of opportunities for electrospun nanofibers in analytical chemistry

Challenges associated with analyte and matrix complexities and the ever increasing pressure from all sectors of industry for alternative analytical devices, have necessitated the development and application of new materials in analytical chemistry. To date, nanomaterials have emerged as having excellent properties for analytical chemistry applications mainly due to their large surface area to volume ratio and the availability of a wide variety of chemical and morphological modification methods. Of the available nanofibrous material fabrication methods, electrospinning has emerged as the most versatile. It is the aim of this contribution to highlight some of the recent developments that harness the great potential shown by electrospun nanofibers for application in analytical chemistry. The review discusses the use of electrospun nanofibers as a platform for low resolution separation or as a chromatographic sorbent bed for high resolution separation. It concludes by discussing the applications of electrospun nanofibers in detection systems with a specific focus on the development of simple electrospun nanofiber based colorimetric probes.     

A (−)‐norephedrine‐based molecularly imprinted polymer for the solid‐phase extraction of psychoactive phenylpropylamino alkaloids from Khat (Catha edulis Vahl. Endl.) chewing leaves

A molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was prepared using (?)‐norephedrine as the template, methacrylic acid as the functional monomer, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross‐linker and chloroform as the porogen. The MIP was used as a selective sorbent in the molecularly imprinted solid‐phase extraction (MIP‐SPE) of the psychoactive phenylpropylamino alkaloids, norephedrine and its analogs, cathinone and cathine, from Khat (Catha edulis Vahl. Endl.) leaf extracts prior to HPLC‐DAD analysis. The MIP was able to selectively extract the alkaloids from the aqueous extracts of Khat. Loading, washing and elution of the alkaloids bound to the MIP were evaluated under different conditions. The clean baseline of the Khat extract obtained after MIP‐SPE confirmed that a selective and efficient sample clean‐up was achieved. Good recoveries (90.0–107%) and precision (RSDs 2.3–3.2%) were obtained in the validation of the MIP‐SPE‐HPLC procedure. The content of the three alkaloids in Khat samples determined after treatment with MIP‐SPE and a commercial Isolute C₁₈ (EC) SPE cartridge were in good agreement. These findings indicate that MIP‐SPE is a reliable method that can be used for sample pre‐treatment for the determination of Khat alkaloids in plant extracts or similar matrices and could be applicable in pharmaceutical, forensic and biomedical laboratories. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synthesis and characterization of cobalt chloride/poly(ethylene oxide) electrospun hybrid nanofibers

Cobalt chloride (CoCl₂)/poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) hybrid nanofibers with diameters ranging from 500 to 700 nm were successfully synthesized by a simple and versatile approach of electrospinning. The CoCl₂/PEO hybrid nanofibers were studied by different techniques such as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). One dimensional (1-D) surface roughness average (Ra_1-D) along a typical nanofiber was analyzed to be 57 nm. The chemical interactions between the CoCl₂ and PEO molecules showed that polar environment provided by CoCl₂ for the PEO molecules aided the modification of CoCl₂ molecule configuration.     

Electrospun nanofibers as sorbent material for solid phase extraction

Electrospinning has emerged as the most versatile technique for nanofiber fabrication. Owing to their large surface area to volume ratio, electrospun nanofibers have the potential to serve as a good sorbent material for solid phase extraction (SPE) based techniques. The ability to incorporate a variety of functionalities prior or post-electrospinning presents a platform to tune the sorbents for specific applications. It is the aim of this contribution to highlight some of the recent developments that harness the great potential of electrospun nanofibers as sorbents for SPE. The review discusses the various ways in which the electrospinning technique addresses two important parameters for sorbent material, which are sorptive capacity and selectivity. It concludes by presenting and discussing the potential for development of SPE format technology and configurations based on electrospun nanofibers.