Uniform-sized molecularly imprinted polymer for metsulfuron-methyl by one-step swelling and polymerization method

Uniform-sized molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) beads for metsulfuron-methyl (MSM) were firstly prepared by one-step swelling and polymerization method using 4-vinylpyridine (4-VPY) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EDMA) as functional monomer and cross-linker, respectively. The preparation was optimized by varying the ratio of MSM to 4-VPY. The chromatographic behaviors of MSM and other structurally related sulfonylureas (SUs) on the resultant MIP column were evaluated. The imprinted polymer revealed specific affinity to the template and the fair resolution of SUs was also obtained. Furthermore, the uniform-sized MSM-MIP was used as the solid phase extraction (SPE) material to enrich MSM in real water samples before reversed-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) analysis. The recovery of MSM from 100 mL of drinking water at a 50 ng/L spike level was 99.59% with R.S.D. of 1.13%. The detection limit was about 6.0 ng/L of MSM when enriching a 100 mL water sample.