Development of a Nanoparticle-Assisted Fabric Phase Sorptive Extraction Technique Coupled with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography for Sensitive Determination of Aflatoxins in Food Samples

Fabric phase sorptive extraction (FPSE) is a new extraction method that has the advantages of permeable sol-gel derived hybrid organic-inorganic sorbents with flexible and permeable fabric substrates, which leads to high efficiency and high sensitivity of this method. The aim of this research is to improve the FPSE method and design a modified technique called nanoparticle-assisted fabric phase sorptive extraction (NFPSE) using carbon dot nanoparticles to improve the sorbent efficiency. In this study, we focused on the determination of aflatoxins as one of the carcinogens that are abundant in nature and severely contaminate the food sources of humans and animals. The study focused on 4 types of aflatoxin B2, B1, G2, and G1. Various parameters that were effective in NFPSE were optimized. Under the selected conditions, extraction yields ranging from 80% to 95% for Aflatoxins were obtained with acceptable repeatability on the food samples. The calibration curves of the analytes were calculated by good correlation coefficient values (R2>0.990). Limits of detection (LOD) were calculated in the range of 0.12-0.51 ng.mL-1 and limits of quantification (LOQ) were considered in the range of 0.37-1.56 ng.mL-1. Intraday precisions were found in the range between 3.9% and 5.3% (RSD, n=3). The within-laboratory reproducibility was investigated in a period of one month and the results for all 4 types of aflatoxins were from 6.9-15%. the developed method was successfully used on food samples.