Synthesis of magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers for the selective separation and determination of metronidazole in cosmetic samples

Abstract

In this study, novel magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (MMIPs) were developed as a sorbent for solid-phase extraction (SPE) and used for the selective separation of metronidazole (MNZ) in cosmetics; MNZ was detected by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). First, magnetic Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by the co-precipitation of Fe²⁺and Fe³⁺ ions in an ammonia solution; then oleic acid (OA) was modified onto the surface of Fe₃O₄NPs. Finally, the MMIP was prepared by aqueous suspension polymerization, involving the copolymerization of Fe₃O₄NPs@OA with MNZ as the template molecule, methacrylic acid (MAA) as the functional monomer, ethylene glycol maleic rosinate acrylate (EGMRA) as the cross-linking agent, and 2,2-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as the initiator. The MMIP materials showed high selective adsorption capacity and fast binding kinetics for MNZ; the maximum adsorption amount of the MMIP to MNZ was 46.7 mg/g. The assay showed a linear range from 0.1 to 20.0 μg/mL for MNZ with the correlation coefficient 0.999. The relative standard deviations (RSD) of intra- and inter-day ranging from 0.71 to 2.45 % and from 1.06 to 5.20 % were obtained. The MMIP can be applied to the enrichment and determination of MNZ in cosmetic products with the recoveries of spiked toner, powder, and cream cosmetic samples ranging from 90.6 to 104.2, 84.1 to 91.4, and 90.3 to 100.4 %, respectively, and the RSD was <3.54 %.