Innovative chemically bonded ionic liquids-based sol-gel coatings as highly porous, stable and selective stationary phases for solid phase microextraction

In this work, two allyl-functionalised ionic liquids (ILs), 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate and 1-allyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulphonyl)imide, were used as selective coating materials to prepare chemically bonded ILs-based organic-inorganic hybrid solid phase microextraction fibres. These fibres were prepared with the aid of γ-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane as bridge using sol-gel method and free radical cross-linking technology. The underlying mechanisms of the sol-gel reaction were proposed, and the successful binding of these functional ILs to the sol-gel substrate was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. These IL-based sol-gel coatings had porous surface structure, high thermal stability, a wide range of pH stability, strong solvent resistance and good coating preparation reproducibility. They also had high selectivity and sensitivity towards strong polar phenolic environmental estrogens (PEEs) and aromatic amines due to the strong electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding and π-π interactions provided by the special molecular structure of these imidazolium ILs. Moreover, their characteristics were somewhat different depending on the type of anions in the IL structure. The practical applicability of these IL-based sol-gel coatings was evaluated through the analysis of PEEs in two real water samples. The detection limits were quite low, varying from 0.0030 to 0.1248 μg L⁻¹. The linearity was very good in the range of 0.1 to 1000 μg L⁻¹ for most analytes, and the relative standard deviation values were below 6%. The relative recoveries were between 83.1 and 104.1% for lake water and between 89.1 and 97.1% for sewage drainage outlet water.