Molecularly imprinted silica as a selective SPE sorbent for triazine herbicides

A molecularly imprinted organically modified silica was prepared through a simple sol-gel procedure and evaluated as a specific sorbent for SPE of triazine herbicides. The material proved to be highly selective for the template molecule, atrazine, as well as for other structurally related species such as simazine and propazine. The performance of this material was shown to be comparable with commercial acrylate-based molecularly imprinted polymers. The molecularly imprinted silica was applied for the determination of trace levels of the target triazine analytes in sugar cane juice (locally called "garapa").