Rational screening of covalent organic frameworks for solid-phase microextraction of advanced glycation end products...

Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are increased by thermal processing in foods, raising the risk of chronic diseases. To efficiently monitor AGEs, density functional theory (DFT) was applied for predicting and screening the suitable adsorbent before synthesis. The binding energies between ten COFs and two representative AGEs were calculated. Owing to the synergistic effect of size selectivity, hydrogen affinity, and halogen bonds, BrCOF performed relatively stronger binding energies with AGEs than other adsorbents. After synthesis and characterization (FT-IR, ¹³C NMR, PXRD, and N₂ adsorption-desorption), BrCOF was utilized as solid-phase microextraction (SPME) coating for enriching AGEs (CML, CEL, and PYR) in thermally processed foods, followed by UHPLC-MS/MS detection. Compared with commercial adsorbents and reported methods, the proposed approach exhibited excellent linear range (0.05-500 ng mL^-1) and limit of detection (0.001 ng mL^-1). This work offers a promising platform for screening adsorbents for SPME of AGEs from complex foods.