Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials https://doi.org/10.1007/s10904-018-1027-0 Electrospun Magnetic Zeolite/Polyacrylonitrile Nanofbers for Extraction of PAHs from Waste Water: Optimized with Central Composite Design Marjan Asadi 1,2  · Syed Shahabuddin 3  · Afsaneh Mollahosseini 2  · Jesbains Kaur 2  · R. Saidur 2,4 Received: 24 September 2018 / Accepted: 22 November 2018 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract The present study discovered the synthesis of a novel and efcient magnetic nanofber fabricated via electrospinning of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and magnetic zeolite (PAN–MZeo). The synthesized nanofber was applied as magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) adsorbent, for the determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in water samples prior to gas chromatography fame ionization detector (GC-FID). Response surface methodology based on the central composite design was employed for the optimization of the various parameters including sorbent amount, desorption solvent volume, adsorption and desorption time on the extraction efciency. Excellent linearity was achieved at optimized conditions, with coefcients of determination (R 2 ) between 0.9948 and 0.9977. The limit of detections for PAHs was in the range of 0.14–0.21 ng mL −1 . The repeatability and reproducibility precision (RSD%) were less than 10%. The real sample analysis showed satisfactory extraction recovery (92–113%) for the fve selected PAHs in agricultural, well and mineral water samples. Therefore, the newly fabricated PAN–MZeo–MSPE is an accurate, rapid, and reliable sample-pretreatment method based on comparisons from previous studies. Keywords Magnetic solid phase extraction · PAN/magnetic zeolite · Composite nanofbers · Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons · Central composite design 1 Introduction Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are persistent organic pollutants with two or more fused aromatic rings that have no heteroatoms or substituent groups [1]. These chemicals are principally formed during incomplete com- bustion or pyrolysis of organic substances [2]. Listed as priority contaminants by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), these compounds have been proven to be mutagenic and carcinogenic, posing serious threat to human health [3]. Hence, detection of PAHs is essential for the pre- vention and control of these analytes in the environmental water, especially drinking water which is frequently used in everyday life of human being [4]. Due to the extremely low PAHs concentrations and complex matrices of aqueous samples, direct determina- tion is not usually feasible, thus extraction and purifca- tion process prior to GC/FID analysis is required [5]. In recent decades, various sample preparation methods, such as solid phase extraction (SPE) [6–8], solid phase micro- extraction (SPME) [9, 10] and stir bar sportive extrac- tion (SBSE) [11–13] have successfully been developed to isolate and enrich these analytes. In particular, the SPE has shown great results due to its potential advantages, including high enrichment factor and recovery, low con- sumption of toxic organic solvents and simple automation and operation [14, 15]. Magnetic solid phase extraction (MSPE) as a new mode of SPE can overcome the draw- backs of conventional SPE, such as cartridge clogging, * Syed Shahabuddin syedshahab.hyd@gmail.com; syeds@sunway.edu.my 1 Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran 2 Research Laboratory of Spectroscopy & Micro and Nano Extraction, Department of Chemistry, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran 3 Research Centre for Nanomaterials and Energy Technology (RCNMET), School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia 4 Department of Engineering, Lancaster University, Lancashire LA1 4YW, UK