Iranian Association of Environmental Health (IAEH)
Abstract
Solid phase extraction is one of the major applications of molecularly
imprinted polymers fields for clean-up of environmental and biological
samples namely molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction. In this
study, solid phase extraction using the imprinted polymer has been
optimized with the experimental design approach for a triazine
herbicide, named atrazine with regard to the critical factors which
influence the molecular imprinted solid phase extraction efficiency
such as sample pH, concentration, flow-rate, volume, elution solvent,
washing solvent and sorbent mass. Optimization methods that involve
changing one factor at a time can be laborious. A novel approach for
the optimization of imprinted solid-phase extraction using chemometrics
is described. The factors were evaluated statistically and also
validated with spiked water samples and showed a good reproducibility
over six consecutive days as well as six within-day experiments. Also,
in order to the evaluate efficiency of the optimized molecularly
imprinted solid-phase extraction protocols, enrichment capacity,
reusability and cross-reactivity of cartridges have been also
evaluated. Finally, selective molecularly imprinted solid-phase
extraction of atrazine was successfully demonstrated with a recovery
above 90% for spiked drinking water samples. It was concluded that the
chemometrics is frequently employed for analytical method optimization
and based on the obtained results, it is believed that the central
composite design could prove beneficial for aiding the molecularly
imprinted polymer and molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction
development