Determination of profenofos in seawater and foodstuff samples after its molecularly imprinted polymer pipette-tip micro solid phase extraction optimized by response surface methodology

Mahsa Tamandani; Sayyed Hossein Hashemi; Massoud Kaykhaii; Ahmad Jamali Keikha; Ali Nasiriyan

doi:10.1186/s13065-022-00807-z

Determination of profenofos in seawater and foodstuff samples after its molecularly imprinted polymer pipette-tip micro solid phase extraction optimized by response surface methodology

BMC Chem. 2022 Mar 15;16(1):12. doi: 10.1186/s13065-022-00807-z.

Authors

Mahsa Tamandani¹, Sayyed Hossein Hashemi¹, Massoud Kaykhaii², Ahmad Jamali Keikha³, Ali Nasiriyan⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Marine Chemistry, Faculty of Marine Science, Chabahar Maritime University, Chabahar, Iran.
² Department of Process Engineering and Chemical Technology, Faculty of Chemistry, Gdansk University of Technology, G. Narutowicza St. 11/12, 80-233, Gdansk, Poland. kaykhaii@gmail.com.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Marine Engineering, Chabahar Maritime University, Chabahar, Iran.
⁴ Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.

Abstract

Background: In this research, a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was synthesized and employed as a sorbent for pipette-tip micro solid phase extraction of profenofos insecticide in seawater, rice, and fish samples. The instrument employed for quantitation was spectrophotometry.

Results: Various factors affecting the microextraction protocol, including type and volume of the elution solvent, weight of MIP, pH and volume of sample solution, and number of cycles of loading and desorption were considered and optimized using one-factor-at-a-time, central composite design and Box-Behnken design. Factors optimized at: pH 4.0, amount of sorbent 2.5 mg, volume of methanol:acetic (9:1) acid as eluent 250 µL, both the number of extraction and elution cycles 5, and volume of sample 8.0 mL. At optimized conditions, an enrichment factor of 31 was achieved and the linearity range of the method was between 1.0 and 1000.0 µg/L. A good detection limit of 0.33 µg/L with a reproducibility better than 5.6% (as RSD) was observed.

Conclusion: The technique showed good analytical features for determination of profenofos in seawater, rice, and fish samples. Simplicity of operation of spectrophotometry and lack of using expensive HPLC grade solvents are other points of strengths of this method. The total analysis time was about 10 min, which is far less than techniques such as HPLC. Comparison between optimization with central composite design and Box-Behnken design showed better performance of the former.

Keywords: Food samples; Molecularly imprinted polymer; Pipette tip micro-solid phase extraction; Profenofos; Response surface methodology; Seawater analysis.