Issue 9, 2015

Quantifying BTEX in aqueous solutions with potentially interfering hydrocarbons using a partially selective sensor array

Abstract

Partially selective gold nanoparticle sensors have the sensitivity and selectivity to discriminate and quantify benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene and naphthalene (BTEXN) at concentrations relevant to the US Environmental Protection Agency. In this paper we demonstrate that gold nanoparticle chemiresistors can do so in the presence of 16 other hydrocarbons and that they did not reduce the discriminating power of the array. A two-level full factorial designed experiment was performed on unary, binary, ternary, quaternary, quinary combinations of BTEXN analytes with and without the possibly interfering hydrocarbons. The nominal component concentration of the mixtures was 100 μg L−1, equivalent to approximately 100 parts per billion (ppb). Concentrations predicted with the random forests method had an average root mean square error of 10–20% of the component concentrations. This level of accuracy was achieved regardless of whether or not the 16 possibly interfering hydrocarbons were present. This work shows that the sensitivity and selectivity of gold nanoparticles chemiresistor sensors towards BTEXN analytes are not unduly affected by the other hydrocarbons that are expected to be present at a petroleum remediation site.

Graphical abstract: Quantifying BTEX in aqueous solutions with potentially interfering hydrocarbons using a partially selective sensor array

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 Feb 2015
Accepted
05 Mar 2015
First published
09 Mar 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Analyst, 2015,140, 3233-3238

Quantifying BTEX in aqueous solutions with potentially interfering hydrocarbons using a partially selective sensor array

J. S. Cooper, H. Kiiveri, L. J. Hubble, E. Chow, M. S. Webster, K.-H. Müller, A. Sosa-Pintos, A. Bendavid, B. Raguse and L. Wieczorek, Analyst, 2015, 140, 3233 DOI: 10.1039/C5AN00223K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements