Novel ion imprinted polymer magnetic mesoporous silica nano-particles for selective separation and determination of lead ions in food samples

•Novel magnetic sorbent for determination of Pb(II) ions in contaminated food samples.•Increasing ion imprinted polymer surface by coating on mesoporous silica.•Magnetic mesoporous silica with high surface area for easy separation during the analysis.•Low detection limit and high preconcentration factor for determined of trace Pb(II) ions. A novel Pb(II) ion imprinted polymer coated on magnetic mesoporous silica was synthesised and characterised by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermal gravimetric/differential thermal analysis (TG/DTA), elemental analysis (CHN) and low angle X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). The application of this sorbent was investigated in preconcentration and determination of low concentrations of lead ions. Through this study, various effective factors on determination, such as pH of the sample solution, eluent including type, concentration and volume, adsorption and desorption time which are effective on the method efficiency, were appraised. In order to investigate the selectivity of this sorbent toward Pb(II) ions, the effect of variety of ions on preconcentration and recovery of Pb(II) ions were also investigated. The limit of detection (LOD) was found to be lower than 1.3μgL−1 and the recovery and relative standard deviation (RSD%) of the method were higher than 97.3% and lower than 2.9%, respectively. The application of this sorbent was investigated in separation and determination of lead-contaminated food with concentration below the detection limit of flame atomic adsorption spectroscopy. Validation of the presented method was performed by analysing several standard reference materials with certified lead concentrations.