Synthesis of surface molecularly imprinted silica micro-particles in aqueous solution and the usage for selective off-line solid-phase extraction of 2,4-dinitrophenol from water matrixes

Very severe reaction conditions are required in the conventional synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), which is unfavorable to their applications in chemical separation and analysis. A simple surface molecular imprinting approach was developed to synthesize MIP-coated SiO₂ micro-particles in aqueous solutions. The ¹H NMR and UV-vis spectroscopic analysis indicated that via hydrogen bonding, the functional monomer (o-phenylenediamine) can associate with the target (template) 2,4-dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP), as a model compound of organic pollutants, to form a precursor in aqueous solution. The copolymerization of this precursor and the free monomer was performed in the aqueous suspension of surface modified SiO₂ particles, leading to the formation of MIP-coated SiO₂ micro-particles. The MIP-coated silica particles were characterized with FT-IR, TGA, and UV-vis solid-state reflection spectroscopy, and were further demonstrated to have high adsorption capacity, excellent selectivity and site accessibility for 2,4-DNP. The new absorbent was successfully used in solid-phase extraction (SPE) to selectively enrich and determine 2,4-DNP in aqueous samples. The experimental results indicated that the MIP-SPE column yielded recoveries higher than 92% with R.S.D. <2.8%, much better than the commercial C₁₈-SPE column, which produced a recovery less than 30% with R.S.D. <3.0%.