Molecularly imprinted polymers combination with deep eutectic solvents for solid-phase extraction of caffeic acid from hawthorn.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with caffeic acid as template and non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) materials were prepared in the same procedure. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and adsorption capacity test were used to evaluate characteristic of the new materials. MIPs, NIPs and C18 were used for rapid purification of caffeic acid from hawthorn with solid-phase extraction ( SPE) , and extract yields of caffeic acid with the proposed materials were 3.46 µg/g, 1.01 µg/g and 1.17 µg/g, respectively. To optimize the MIPs-SPE procedures, different kinds of elution solutions were studied. Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were prepared by choline chloride (ChCl)-glycerol (1/2, n/n) and choline chloride-urea (1/ 2, n/n). Methanol was mixed with the two kinds of DESs (glycerol-based DESs, urea-based DESs) in different ratios (0.5:1, 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, v/v), and they were used to investigated as elution solutions in the above MIPs-SPE procedures. The results showed that MIPs were potential SPE materials, and methanol/ glycerol-based DESs (3 :1, v/v) had the best elution capability with the recovery of 82.32%.