Preparation of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid imprinted organic–inorganic hybrid monolithic column and application to selective solid-phase microextraction

An organic–inorganic hybrid molecular imprinting monolith (HMIM) has been prepared, characterized and applied for the determination of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in rice with high-performance liquid chromatography-photodiodes array detector (HPLC–PAD). By optimizing the polymerization conditions, such as the volume ratio of the inorganic alcoholysate and organic part, the 2,4-D-HMIM was synthesized in a micro pipette tip using acrylamide as the functional monomer, ethylene dimethacrylate as the cross-linker and methanol as the porogenic solvent. The morphology of the monolith was studied by scanning electronmicroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectra. The imprinted factor of the monolith for 2,4-D reached 3.29. A simple, rapid and sensitive method for the determination of 2,4-D in rice using the HMIM microextraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-photodiodes array detector was developed. Some parameters affecting the sample pretreatment were investigated, including the type and volume of eluent, the flow rate and volume of sample solution. The assay exhibited a linear dynamic range of 167–4167 μg/kg with the correlation coefficient above 0.9972. The detection limit (at S/N = 3) was 50 μg/kg. The proposed method was successfully applied for the selective determination of 2,4-D in rice.