Preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers using dummy template and the applications in selective solid-phase extraction of seven bisphenols from human urine, bovine serum and beer samples

Abstract

A molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for selective recognition of seven bisphenols (BPs) was prepared using dummy template phenolphthalein (PP) by bulk polymerization. The characterization results of scanning electron microscopy and nitrogen adsorption-desorption measurements showed that the prepared PP-MIP possessed narrow particle diameter distribution (40-60 µm), a specific surface area (S(BET)) of 359.77 m2/g and a total pore volume (Vt) of 0.730 cm3/g. The adsorption capacity for bisphenol A (BPA) of PP-MIP was evaluated by static adsorption experiment. And the Scatchard analysis revealed that the maximum specific adsorption capacity of PP-MIP was 4.661 µmol/g. Good class selectivity for BPA and its six structural analogues of bisphenol B (BPB) , bisphenol E (BPE), bisphenol AF (BPAF), bisphenol S (BPS), bisphenol AP (BPAP) and bisphenol Z (BPZ) was demonstrated by the chromatographic evaluation experiment. The prepared PP-MIP was successfully used as solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbent for the separation and purification of the seven BPs in human urine, bovine serum and beer samples. Meanwhile, an accurate and sensitive MIP-SPE-HPLC method was established for the determination of the seven BPs in human urine, bovine serum and beer samples. The limits of detection (LODs) for the three samples were in the range of 1.2-2.0 µg/L. The results showed that good linearities were obtained in the range of 0.02-2 mg/L for the seven BPs and the correlation coefficients (r) were higher than 0.999 8. The recoveries of the BPs spiked in blank samples at two spiked levels (100 and 500 µg/L for each BP) were in the range of 90.1%-107.1% with the RSDs ≤ 8.1%. The proposed method is simple and reliable for the rapid detection of the seven BPs in human urine, bovine serum and beer samples.