Development of water-compatible molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the detection of six sulfonamides in animal-derived foods.

A water-compatible molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was prepared by combining reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) with reflux precipitation polymerization (RPP) for solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) to detect six sulfonamides (SAs) in animal-derived foods and water samples. The SEM images indicated the spherical structure of MIP materials. In water medium, MIPs still performed good specific adsorption for SAs. Under the optimized detection conditions, the proposed method offered good linearity (R2 > 0.996) for the six SAs with relative standard deviation (RSD) for ten replicate extractions of 1.64%-4.68%, limits of detection (S/N = 3) of 0.02 μg L-1-0.1 μg L-1 and recoveries of 63.49%-115.72%. Besides, the whole extract process avoided organic solvent consumption, and trace sulfadiazine residues were found in the pork sample at similar concentration of 3.57 and 3.79 μg kg-1 using the MIP-SPE method and commercial Oasis HLB cartridge, respectively. It is confirmed the method could be applied to quantitative detect the trace residue sulfonamides in animal-derived samples and water samples.