ORIGINAL A New Aluminium Hydroxide Coating on Fused Silica Fiber for the Determination of 1,4-Dioxane in Surfactants and Detergents Using HS-SPME-GC Saied Saeed Hosseiny Davarani • Leila Masoomi • Mohammad Hossein Banitaba • Hamid Reza Lotfi Zadeh Zhad • Omid Sadeghi • Azam Samiei Received: 22 July 2011 / Revised: 3 February 2012 / Accepted: 9 February 2012 / Published online: 1 March 2012 Ó Springer-Verlag 2012 Abstract This paper presents a simple and convenient analytical method for determination of 1,4-dioxane in surfactants and detergents by using a novel SPME fiber. For the preparation of the fiber, the surface of a fused silica capillary tubing was modified by means of aluminium tri- tert-butoxide in a straightforward grafting process. The surface of our proposed fiber provides a Lewis acid–base interaction with analyte functional groups. The main fac- tors affecting the extraction were optimized by using a central composite design method, which leads to the fol- lowing optimum conditions: extraction temperature of 34 °C, extraction time of 4 min, equilibrium time of 13 min, and salt content of 25% (w/v). The optimum conditions showed a linear range from 0.005 to 60 lgg -1 . LOD and LOQ of the proposed method were estimated to be 0.0015 and 0.005 lgg -1 , respectively. This method was also applied for the analysis of some real samples including ethoxylated fatty alcohol, sodium lauryl ether sulfate, dish-washing agents, and shampoos by using the standard addition method. Keywords HS-SPME-GC Á 1,4-Dioxane Á Detergents Á Chemical grafting process Á Aluminium hydroxide coating Introduction 1,4-Dioxane is a solvent used in a wide range of industrial organic products (e.g., paints, varnishes, inks, and dyes) and is also present as a by-product in many consumer products (e.g., food additives, cleaning products, cosmet- ics, shampoos, and laundry detergents) [1, 2]. 1,4-Dioxane causes liver damage and kidney failure [3]. It causes cancer in rats and mice [4–6] and can be absorbed through the intact skin of animals [7]. This compound was included in the Final Third Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List by US EPA in September 2009, due to its probable impact as human carcinogen (B2), as classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer [8]. More- over, 50 ng mL -1 of 1,4-dioxane in water has been sug- gested as the maximum allowable contaminant level since 2002 by World Health Organization (WHO) [9]. 1,4- Dioxane is very soluble in water and does not strongly bind to soil, suggesting the potential to leach into groundwater [10]. So the monitoring of 1,4-dioxane is important and the amount of 1,4-dioxane must be strictly controlled in foods, drugs, cosmetic products and also in the environment. It is reported that in the manufacturing of alkyl ether sulfates, the sulphonation step is the major source of 1,4-dioxane as an undesirable by-product [11]. 1,4-Dioxane is formed by the chemical cleavage of two molecules of ethylene oxide from the parent ethoxylated alcohol. It is an undesirable by-product of the ethoxylation process and its concentra- tion range is from trace to hundreds and even thousands of lgg -1 depending on raw materials quality and sulphona- tion/neutralization conditions. Solid phase microextraction (SPME), which was devel- oped by Arthur and Pawliszyn [12], has been widely used for the preconcentration and sample cleanup of volatile and semi-volatile analytes. It is a solvent-free extraction method, Dedicated to Professor Mostafa M. Amini on the occasion of his 60th birthday. S. S. Hosseiny Davarani (&) Á L. Masoomi Á M. H. Banitaba Á H. R. Lotfi Zadeh Zhad Á O. Sadeghi Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University G. C, Tehran 1983963113, Islamic Republic of Iran e-mail: ss-hosseiny@cc.sbu.ac.ir A. Samiei Mahd-e-Taban Investment Company, Vali-e-asr Ave., Tehran 1433895611, Islamic Republic of Iran 123 Chromatographia (2012) 75:371–377 DOI 10.1007/s10337-012-2213-9