Preparation and characterization of molecularly imprinted microspheres for dibutyl phthalate recognition in aqueous environment

Molecularly imprinted microspheres (MIMs) were prepared by suspension polymerization for the binding and recognition of dibutyl phthalate (DBP). DBP was used as the template molecule, methacrylic acid as the functional monomer, ethylene dimethacrylate (EDMA) as the linking agent, PVA as the dispersing agent, and Span 60 as the surfactant. The MIMs were characterized with electron microscope scanning and rebinding experiments. The Scatchard plot revealed that the template‐polymer system has a two‐site binding behavior with dissociation constants of 4.05 and 0.515 mmol/L. The MIMs exhibited the highest selective rebinding to DBP at 736.85 μg/g. The recoveries of the MIM‐SPE column for DBP extraction was 94.75–101.9% with the RSD of 1.5–7.3%, indicating the feasibility of the prepared MIMs for DBP extraction. Finally, the method developed was used to analyze the trace levels of phthalate in aqueous environment samples.