A functionalized polymer adsorbent for effective extraction of β-adrenergic agonists from meat prior to their...

A polyhydroxy hyper-cross-linked polymer (HCP), named as TP/BCMBP-HCP, was successfully synthesized by copolymerizing 4,4',4''-trihydroxytriphenylmethane (TP) and 4,4'-bis(chloromethyl)biphenyl (BCMBP) to target at the selective extraction of the β-adrenergic agonists (ractopamine and bambuterol). TP/BCMBP-HCP demonstrated an effective adsorption for the β-adrenergic agonists via hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking interactions. With this polymer as adsorbent, an effective SPE method was developed to extract the β-adrenergic agonists from meat samples. With the help of sensitive and selective high-performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD), ractopamine and bambuterol had a linear response range of 0.56-200 ng g^-1 and 5.00-2000 ng g^-1 respectively for meat samples, with the coefficients of determination (r²) ≥ 0.9942. The limits of detection (S/N = 3) for mutton and pork samples were 0.21 and 0.17 ng g^-1 for ractopamine, and 1.80 and 1.51 ng g^-1 for bambuterol, respectively. The method recoveries ranged from 87.5 % to 115 %, with the RSDs below 9.4 %. With conventional HPLC-FLD instrument, the method achieved satisfactory sensitivity, repeatability and accuracy for the analysis of the analytes in complex meat samples.