Use of a bisphenol-A imprinted polymer as a selective sorbent for the determination of phenols and phenoxyacids in honey by liquid chromatography with diode array and tandem mass spectrometric detection

An extraction-preconcentration procedure based on the use of a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) as selective sorbent has been developed for the determination of several phenolic compounds (bisphenol-A, bisphenol-F and 4-nitrophenol) and phenoxyacid herbicides (2,4-D, 2,4,5-T and 2,4,5-TP) in honey samples. Liquid chromatography with diode array detection (LC–DAD) and electrospray ionisation-ion trap mass spectrometry (LC–IT-MS) were used for the separation, identification and quantification of these analytes.The molecularly imprinted polymer was obtained by precipitation polymerisation with bisphenol-A (BPA) as template and 4-vinylpyridine as the functional monomer. The behaviour of this sorbent was compared with those of other materials frequently used in SPE. The selectivity of the BPA–MIP for the target analytes was tested in samples containing other pesticides in common use. The recoveries achieved for all six compounds were in the 81–96% range.By applying the proposed procedure prior to LC–IT-MS, the limits of detection achieved in commercial honey samples were in the 0.1–3.8 ng g−1 range, with relative standard deviations of 12–24%.