The fabrication of a highly ordered molecularly imprinted mesoporous silica for solid-phase extraction of nonylphenol in textile samples

Abstract

We integrated molecularly imprinted technology with mesoporous silica to prepare nonylphenol-imprinted mesoporous silica (NPIMS). It is a highly ordered and efficient absorption material, which developed in one-step co-condensation process. N-Phenyl-3-aminopropyltrimethoxysilane was used as the functional monomer to produce imprinted cavities that were distributed within the framework of MCM-41 mesoporous silica. Fourier-transform infrared and solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopies, X-ray diffractometry, transmission electron microscopy, were used to characterize the functional groups, porosity and microscopic ordered structure of NPIMS. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller specific surface area of NPIMS was 990.97 m2 g−1. NPIMS optimized (1:4) template-to-functional-monomer ratio exhibited the best specific binding capacity (56.4 mg g−1) and imprinted factor (IF = 3.22). NPIMS reached adsorption equilibrium within 10 min even at a very high 4-nonylphenol concentration (300 mg L−1) and showed excellent selectivity among several phenols. NPIMS was used as an adsorbent for the solid-phase extraction of real samples; enrichment experiments demonstrated that NPIMS selectively adsorbed 4-nonylphenol with an excellent selectivity and exhibited good enrichment performance for the target substance with a high recovery.