Preparation of molecularly imprinted polymer containing selective cavities for urea molecule and its application for urea extraction

A new molecularly imprinted polymer material having urea molecule selective cavities was introduced. Urea was properly dissolved in acetonitrile in the presence of an acidic functional monomer. Molecularly imprinted polymers with different compositions were examined and the roper formulation was selected. It was shown that the MIP had a considerable selectivity for urea in comparison to similar compounds such as thiourea and hydroxyurea. The obtained polymer was used as an adsorber for solid phase extraction (SPE) of urea in the aqueous samples. The extracted urea was determined by using a spectrophotometric method. Different parameters of SPE were optimized and the developed procedure was used for urea determination in real samples. The calibration graph of the method was linear in the range of 0.6–8.3 μmol L−1. The detection limit was calculated to be 0.14 μmol L−1.