Highly selective removal of kitasamycin from the environment by molecularly imprinted polymers: Adsorption performance and mechanism

A newly green molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for kitasamycin (KITA) was synthesized in water by using 1allyl-3-vinylimidazolium chloride ionic liquid and 2-acrylamide-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid as co-functional monomer on the surface of poly (styrene-divinylbenzene) particles. The prepared MIP has excellent selectivity for KITA in mixed solution, and approximately 90% of KITA can be bounded onto MIP within the first 30 min. And the MIP exhibited powerful affinity towards KITA with the maximum adsorption amount of 127.06 mg g-1 with the recovery of 92.3-108.8%, and the binding capacity increased within the contact temperature of 25-45 degrees C. The adsorption mechanism revealed that the synergistic effect of hydrogen bond, 7C-7C interaction and molecule structure was attributed to selectivity of the MIP. Under the optimized condition, a MIP-SPE cartridge coupled with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was developed to determine the residues of KITA in soil, water and muscle samples, and the MIP-SPE cartridge can be regenerated at least 25 cycles. Therefore, the developed MIP-SPE-HPLC strategy can be used as a specific, cost-effective and environmentally-friendly method for identification and determination KITA in environmental samples.