Electrospun polystyrene fibers knitted around imprinted acrylate microspheres as sorbent for paraben derivatives.

Parabens are used as antimicrobial preservatives in food, cosmetic products and pharmaceuticals regardless of their endocrine disrupting effect. In this study, highly selective molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) were synthesized in submicron-sizes and converted to an SPME fiber coating through electrospinning process in order to determine parabens in water samples. Conversion of MIP to a fiber is achieved via creation of spacial knitting around MIP by polystyrene. The selectivity and extraction ability of the fibers were compared with the commercial fibers and the corresponding non-imprinted polymer (NIP) coated fiber. The coated fiber showed better extraction ability among them. Also, the results revealed that the fiber has better selectivity for benzyl paraben and the other structurally-related compounds, such as methyl and propyl paraben. Extraction efficiency of prepared fibers for three parabens has been tested by spiking bottled, tap and sea water samples. The recoveries changed between 92.2 ± 0.8 and 99.8 ± 0.1 for three different water types. This method could be used for selective and sensitive determination of parabens in aqueous samples.