Synthesis of a molecular imprinted polymer as an absorbent for selective extraction of a triazine herbicide from biological samples

  Increasing production and the use of pesticides for agricultural purposes can lead to many environmental and human health risks. Therefore, assessment of their concentration in occupational and environmental samples is necessary to estimate exposure levels. This study was aimed to use a synthesized molecular imprinted polymer (MIP) as a novel and specific absorbent for residue analysis of metribuzin herbicide in biological sample. The MIP was synthesized by copolymerizing the pesticide as the template molecule in presence of methacrylic acid and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as functional and crosslinking monomers, respectively. Afterwards, parameters affecting the adsorption and recycling of metribuzin by synthesized absorbent were optimized using solid phase extraction (SPE) method to demonstrate the ability of the MIP for selective recognition of analyte from biological sample. All samples were analyzed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography. According to the obtained results, trace amount of herbicide was successfully determined using MIP. The optimum amounts of effective parameters on extraction yield were determined as follow: adsorbent amount: 13.15 mg, sample pH: 3, sample flow rate: 1 mL /min, volume of extraction solvent: 1.33 mL, flow rate of extraction solvent: 3 ml/min, and the amount of acid in the solvent composition: 10%. Detection and quantification limits of the method were 0.0119 and 0.0397 ppb, respectively. The developed method can be used as an optimum sample preparation procedure for selective and sensitive extraction and determination of desired herbicide from biological sample