[Determination of sulfonylurea herbicide residues in tobacco leaves by molecularly imprinted-solid phase...

Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) micro-particles were prepared in dichloromethane (DCM) by precipitation polymerization using chlorsulfuron (CS) as a template molecule, α -methacrylic acid (MAA) as a functional monomer, and trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate (TRIM) as a cross-linker. The pretreatment process of the tobacco sample spiked with chlorsulfuron, metsulfuron-methyl, bensulfuron-methyl, tribenuron-methyl, ethametsulfuron, and nicosulfuron, was performed using a chlorsulfuron molecularly imprinted polymer solid phase extraction (CS-MIP-SPE) column prepared with CS-MIP as the sorbent. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was subsequently used for quantitative analysis. In this way, a detection technique for sulfonylurea herbicide residues in tobacco leaves was developed using CS-MIP-SPE as a pretreatment method and HPLC as an analytical tool. The results showed that the methods can be applied to the determination of the six sulfonylurea herbicides in tobacco samples. At spiking contents ranging from 0.50 to 50 μg/g, the recoveries for the six sulfonylurea herbicides in tobacco samples were 77.60%-102.05%, with relative standard deviations of 0.16% to 7.07%, and detection limits of 0.08-0.46 μg/g. With its unique advantages, the MIP-SPE-HPLC method provides a multi-residue analytical platform that can meet the requirements of simultaneous determination of sulfonylurea herbicides in tobacco samples.