Ionic liquids (ILs), also known as
“designer solvents,”
comprise a large group of compounds that can improve overall sample
preparation performance due to their unique physical and chemical
properties. Some of them have a comparable structure to surfactants,
which can be also considered as effective extraction solvents. In
this study, nine different ILs and a double-chained surfactant were
investigated as potential coating materials for iron oxide-based nanoparticles
(NPs) used in the pretreatment of human plasma samples. Various methods
of synthesizing and functionalizing NPs were employed in fabricating
the magnetic sorbents, with the physicochemical properties of the
resultant extraction phases (i.e., naked NPs, NPs coated with silica,
and NPs coated with silica and selected IL or surfactant) being characterized
via X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy,
thermogravimetric analysis (TG), and transmission electron microscopy
(TEM). The effectiveness of the developed NP-based extraction phases
was tested by applying them for the extraction of epirubicin hydrochloride
(EPI) from plasma samples, followed by analysis via liquid chromatography
with fluorescence detection (LC-FL). The results showed that NPs coated
with both silica and IL or silica and surfactant provided significantly
higher extraction efficiency compared to naked NPs and NPs coated
solely with silica. Additionally, the findings also revealed that
the adsorption of analytes depends not only on the coating procedure
but also on the type of coating material used to functionalize the
NPs. Among the tested structures, didodecyldimethylammonium bromide
provided the best performance for the functionalization of NP sorbents
previously coated with silica.