Double water compatible molecularly imprinted polymers applied as solid-phase extraction sorbent for selective preconcentration and determination of triazines in complicated water samples

• Double water compatible MIPs (DWC-MIPs) were prepared by RAFT polymerization.
• DWC-MIPs has water compatible core with hydrophilic polymer brushes.
• DWC-MIPs used as SPE sorbent for preconcentration four triazines with high efficiency.
• The DWC-MIPs-SPE proves to be a highly effective cleanup and enrichment method.

In the present work, double water compatible molecularly imprinted polymers (DWC-MIPs) with water compatible core and hydrophilic polymer brushes were prepared by reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer precipitate polymerization (RAFTPP) and applied as solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbent for selective preconcentration and specific recognition of triazines in water samples. The DWC-MIPs employed as SPE sorbent presented much higher extraction efficiency for four triazines in aqueous media based on the double water compatible property. The validated method was also successfully applied to tap water and river water sample analysis, and satisfactory recoveries were attained, such as 69.2–95.4% with the precision of 1.59–3.94% for four triazines at 100 μg L−1. The DWC-MIPs-SPE proves to be a highly effective cleanup and enrichment method for simultaneous separation and sensitive determination of triazines in complicated water samples.