Combined biocompatible medium with molecularly imprinted polymers for determination of aflatoxins B1 in real sample

A kind of molecularly imprinted polymers modified with biocompatible medium was prepared by suspension polymerization. The obtained hybrid materials were used as the adsorbents for the solid-phase extraction of aflatoxins B1 in real samples. A structural analog of the target, 6-methyl-4-phenylchroman-2-one was used as the pseudo-template, owing to their lower toxicity and cheaper price compared with aflatoxins B1; and methacrylic acid and glycidyl methacrylate were used as the co-monomers. Scanning electron microscopy and size distribution analysis were used to characterize the obtained polymers. The extraction parameters were optimized to achieve the desired extraction performance. The polymer solid-phase extraction coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography was successfully applied to determine aflatoxins B1 from soy sauce without the process of protein removal. Under the optimum extraction conditions, the detection results of aflatoxins B1 in lab-made column in soy sauce samples was carried out, with a recovery rate of 96%. The established method presented a linear range from 10 to 1000 ng/mL with the coefficient of determination of 0.9994 and the limit of detection of 0.05 ng/mL. Likewise, the inherent selectivity of lab-made column towards aflatoxins B1, Ochratoxin A, and Zearalenone was demonstrated.