Preparation and characterization of an immunoaffinity chromatography column for the selective extraction of trace contraceptive drug levonorgestrel from water samples

The preparation and characterization of an immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC) column for the specific extraction and enrichment of trace contraceptive drug levonorgestrel (LNG) from water samples were described. The IAC column was constructed by covalently coupling specific polyclonal antibody against LNG to CNBr-activated Sepharose 4B and packed into a common solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridge. The extraction conditions including loading, washing and eluting solutions, as well as the effect of flow rate on the extraction were carefully optimized. Pure water, 5% of methanol and 50% of methanol were respectively selected as loading, washing and eluting solutions, while the flow rates in the loading, washing and eluting steps were selected to be 1.0, 2.0 and 0.5 mL min−1, respectively. Under optimal conditions, the IAC column was characterized in terms of maximum capacity, extraction recovery and stability. It was found that, for IAC column packed with 0.2 g of solid support immobilized with antibody, the maximum capacity for LNG was about 260 ng. The extraction recoveries of the column for LNG at three different spiked concentrations were within 95.3–106.9%. After more than 35 times repeated usage, there was not significant loss of specific recognition. Using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) as an analytical tool, trace amount of LNG in the range of ng L−1 was found in river water and wastewater samples after 600-fold enrichment, demonstrated the feasibility of the prepared IAC column for LNG extraction.