Water-compatible molecularly imprinted polymer as a sorbent for the selective extraction and purification of adefovir from human serum and urine

A molecularly imprinted polymer has been synthesized to specifically extract adefovir, an antiviral drug, from serum and urine by dispersive solid‐phase extraction before high‐performance liquid chromatography with UV analysis. The imprinted polymers were prepared by bulk polymerization by a noncovalent imprinting method that involved the use of adefovir (template molecule) and functional monomer (methacrylic acid) complex prior to polymerization, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as cross‐linker, and chloroform as porogen. Molecular recognition properties, binding capacity, and selectivity of the molecularly imprinted polymers were evaluated and the results show that the obtained polymers have high specific retention and enrichment for adefovir in aqueous medium. The new imprinted polymer was utilized as a molecular sorbent for the separation of adefovir from human serum and urine. The serum and urine extraction of adefovir by the molecularly imprinted polymer followed by high‐performance liquid chromatography showed a linear calibration curve in the range of 20–100 μg/L with excellent precisions (2.5 and 2.8% for 50 μg/L), respectively. The limit of detection and limit of quantization were determined in serum (7.62 and 15.1 μg/L), and urine (5.45 and 16 μg/L). The recoveries for serum and urine samples were found to be 88.2–93.5 and 84.3–90.2%, respectively.