Zirconia hollow fiber: preparation, characterization, and microextraction application

A zirconia hollow fiber membrane in the macrorange was for the first time successfully synthesized via a template method coupled with a sol-gel process. A polypropylene hollow fiber was employed as the template. The preparation procedure includes repeated impregnation of the template in the proper zirconia sol precursor, and calcination to burn off the template, producing the zirconia hollow fiber. The resulting hollow fiber membrane is almost identical to its template in terms of morphology, exhibiting a hollow core structure. In addition to that, it has a bimodal porous substructure that is different from its template, narrowly distributed nanoskeleton pores, and uniform textural pores or throughpores. The wall thickness and substructures can be conveniently controlled by the synthetic conditions and postheat treatment. Moreover, the thus-prepared zirconia hollow fiber was applied for the microextraction and concentration of a nerve agent degradation product followed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis. Since the zirconia fiber exists as an individual device and is directly usable for extracting, handling is more convenient than, for example, an adsorbent in powder form that needs to be coated on a rod for the extraction process. In addition, it is easily prepared and is superior to the monolithic material in this sense. Pinacolyl methylphosphonic acid, one degradation product of organophosphorus nerve agent (soman), was used as the model analyte. Zirconia hollow fiber was demonstrated to be a highly selective adsorbent for the phosphonic acid-containing compounds with high sensitivity. Limit of detection was as low as 0.07 ng/mL (0.39 nM).