Investigation of ractopamine molecularly imprinted stir bar sorptive extraction and its application for trace analysis of β2-agonists in complex samples

In this paper, a novel molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) coated stir bar with ractopamine as template by glass capillary filling with magnetic core as substrate was prepared reproducibly. The ractopamine MIP coating was homogeneous and porous with the average thickness of 20.6 μm. The extraction apparatus for the stir bar was improved to avoid coating loss. The MIP-coated stir bar showed better extraction capacity and good selectivity than that of non-imprinted polymer (NIP) coated stir bar to ractopamine and its analogues. The extraction capacities of ractopamine, isoxsuprine, clenbuterol and fenoterol for MIP-coated stir bar were 3.3, 3.1, 2.8 and 2.4 times as much as that of the NIP coated stir bar, respectively. The MIP-coated stir bars could be used at least 40 times without apparent damage and kept in dried air for 8 months without reduce of extraction ability. A method for the determination of β2-agonists in complex samples by MIP-coated stir bar sorptive extraction coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed. The linear ranges were 0.5–40 μg/L for ractopamine and 1.0–40 μg/L for isoxsuprine and clenbuterol. The detection limits were within the range of 0.10–0.21 μg/L. The method was successfully applied to the analysis of β2-agonists in spiked pork, liver and feed samples with the recoveries of 83.7–92.3%, 80.5–90.2% and 73.6–86.2%, respectively. The RSDs was within 2.9–8.1%. The method is very suitable for the determination of trace β2-agonists in pork, liver and feed samples.