Analytical Sciences

Fabrication of Fe₃O₄ Nanoparticle-coalesced Hydroxylated Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes for the Analysis of Strychnine in Human Serum

Zufei FENG, Yuehong XU, Shuguang WEI, Bao ZHANG, Fanglin GUAN, and Shengbin LI

College of Forensic & Medicine, Xi’an Jiaotong University, No. 76 Yanta West Street, Xi’an 710061, P. R. China

A magnetic carbon nanomaterial for Fe₃O₄-modified hydroxylated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Fe₃O₄-MWCNTs-OH) was prepared by the aggregating effect of Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles on MWCNTs-OH, and this material was combined with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)/photodiode array detector (PAD) to determine strychnine in human serum samples. Some important parameters that could influence the extraction efficiency of strychnine were optimized, including the extraction time, amounts of Fe₃O₄-MWCNTs-OH, pH of sample solution, desorption solvent and desorption time. Under optimal conditions, the recoveries of spiked serum samples were between 98.3 and 102.7%, and the relative standard deviations (RSDs) ranged from 0.9 to 5.3%. The correlation coefficient was 0.9997. The LODs and LOQs of strychnine were 6.2 and 20.5 ng mL⁻¹, at signal-to-noise ratios of 3 and 10, respectively. These experimental results showed that the proposed method is feasible for the analysis of strychnine in serum samples.

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