Preparation, evaluation and application of molecularly imprinted solid-phase microextraction monolith for selective extraction of pirimicarb in tomato and pear

A simple, rapid and sensitive method for the determination of pirimicarb in tomato and pear using polymer monolith microextraction (PMME) based on the molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) monolith combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-photodiodes array detector (HPLC-PAD) was developed. By optimizing the polymerization conditions, such as the nature of porogenic solvent and functional monomer, the molar ratio of the monomer and cross-linker, an pirimicarb MIP monolith was synthesized in a micropipette tip using methacrylic acid (MAA) as the functional monomer, ethylene dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as the cross-linker and the mixture of toluene-dodecanol as the porogenic solvent. The MIP monolith showed highly specific recognition for the template pirimicarb. The monolith was applied for the selective extraction of pirimicarb in tomato and pear. Several parameters affecting MIP-PMME were investigated, including the nature and volume of extraction solvent, sample volume, flow rate and sample pH. Under the optimum PMME and HPLC conditions, the linear ranges were 2.0-1400 μg/kg for pirimicarb in tomato and pear with the correlation coefficient of above 0.999. The detection limits (s/n=3) were both 0.6 μg/kg. The proposed method was successfully applied for the selective extraction and determination of pirimicarb in tomato and pear.