Novel restricted access materials combined to molecularly imprinted polymers for selective solid-phase extraction of organophosphorus pesticides from honey

A novel restricted access materials (RAM) combined to molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), using malathion as template molecule and glycidilmethacrylate (GMA) as pro-hydrophilic co-monomer, were prepared for the first time. RAM-MIPs with hydrophilic external layer were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and recognition and selectivity properties were compared with the restricted access materials-non-molecularly imprinted polymers (RAM-NIPs) and unmodified MIPs. RAM-MIPs were used as the adsorbent enclosed in solid phase extraction column and several important extraction parameters were comprehensively optimized to evaluate the extraction performance. Under the optimum extraction conditions, RAM-MIPs exhibited comparable or even higher selectivity with greater extraction capacity toward six kinds of organophosphorus pesticides (including malathion, ethoprophos, phorate, terbufos, dimethoate, and fenamiphos) compared with the MIPs and commercial solid phase extraction columns. The RAM-MIPs solid phase extraction coupled with gas chromatography was successfully applied to simultaneously determine six kinds of organophosphorus pesticides from honey sample. The new established method showed good linearity in the range of 0.01-1.0 μg mL−1, low limits of detection (0.0005-0.0019 μg mL−1), acceptable reproducibility (RSD, 2.26-4.81%, n = 6), and satisfactory relative recoveries (90.9-97.6%). It was demonstrated that RAM-MIPs solid phase extraction with excellent selectivity and restricted access function was a simple, rapid, selective, and effective sample pretreatment method.