To ensure environmental protection and food quality and safety, the trace level detection of pesticide residues with molecularly imprinted polymers using a more economic, reliable, and greener approach is always demanded. Herein, novel, enhanced, imprinted polymers based on beta-cyclodextrin, using room-temperature, ionic liquid as a solvent for abamectin were developed with a simple polymerization process. The successful synthesis of the polymers was verified, with morphological and structural characterization performed via scanning electron microscope analysis, nitrogen adsorption experiments, and thermogravimetric analysis. The imprinted polymers showed good adsorption ability, which was confirmed with a pseudo-second-order kinetic model and a Langmuir isotherm model, as they exhibit a theoretical adsorption of 15.08 mg g-1 for abamectin. The polymers showed high selectivity for abamectin and significant reusability without significant performance loss. The MIPs were used to analyze abamectin in spiked apple, banana, orange, and grape samples, and as a result, a good recovery of 81.67-101.47%, with 1.26-4.36% relative standard deviation, and limits of detection and quantitation of 0.02 µg g-1 and 0.05 µg g-1, respectively, was achieved within a linear range of 0.03-1.50 µg g-1. Thus, room-temperature, ionic-liquid-enhanced, beta-cyclodextrin-based, molecularly imprinted polymers for the selective detection of abamectin proved to be a convenient and practical platform.
Keywords: abamectin; molecularly imprinted polymers; pesticide residues; room-temperature ionic liquid; selective extraction.