Sensitive Detection of Aromatic Hydrophobic Compounds in Water and Perfluorooctane Sulfonate in Human Serum by Surface-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry (SALDI-MS) with Amine Functionalized Graphene-Coated Cobalt Nanoparticles

Abstract

In this article, we describe the application of surface-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (SALDI-MS) with the use of amine functionalized graphene-coated cobalt nanoparticles (CoC–NH₂ nanoparticles) to analyse aromatic hydrophobic compounds that are known environmental contaminants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and pentachlorophenol (PCP). Our results demonstrated that SALDI-MS can detect PCP, anthracene, and pyrene in water. In particular, the CoC–NH₂ nanoparticles proved to be an efficient means of capturing PCP in water because of the high adsorption capacity of the nanoparticles for PCP, which resulted in a detectability of 100 ppt. Furthermore, the CoC–NH₂ nanoparticles also functioned as an adsorbent for solid-phase extraction of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) from human serum, displaying good performance with a detectability of 10 ppb by SALDI-MS.