Heteroatom cobalt-based metal-organic framework and reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite for dispersive solid phase extraction of caffeine from exhaled breath condensate samples of premature infants prior to HPLC-PDA

A cobalt-based metal–organic framework and graphene oxide were combined to prepare a new nanocomposite for extracting of caffeine from exhaled breath condensate (EBC) samples. Dispersive micro solid phase extraction of caffeine was conducted using the nanocomposite as a sorbent by adding 10 mg of it to the sample solution and vortexing for 3 min. After extracting of the analyte, it was eluted using the mobile phase. The analyte was then analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array detector. Under optimal conditions, the limit of detection, limit of quantification, and linear range of the calibration curve were found to be 1.7, 5.9, and 10–500 µg/L, respectively. To assess the precision of the method, five replicates of standard solutions containing caffeine at two different concentration levels (50 and 100 µg/L) were tested. The relative standard deviations for intra- and inter-day precisions ranged from 4.3 to 6.8 %. The applicability of the method was demonstrated by analyzing the samples obtained from premature infants undergoing caffeine treatment and caffeine concentrations were 4.9 ± 0.6, 2.7 ± 0.2 µg/L in the EBC samples of who were under treatment by a 5-mg dose. Also, caffeine concentrations were 5.9 ± 0.3 and 18 ± 0.6 µg/L in the the infants who obtained the 10-mg and 25-mg doses, respectively. The results indicated a satisfactory, extraction recovery of 86 % showcasing the method’s reliability and effectiveness in analyzing real samples.