Synthesis of dummy-template molecularly imprinted polymer adsorbents for solid phase extraction of aminoglycosides antibiotics from environmental water samples

A novel dummy molecularly imprinted polymers (DMIPs) for aminoglycoside antibiotics (AAs) was prepared for the first time by precipitation polymerization using raffinose as template molecule, methacrylic acid as functional monomer and trimethylolpropane triacrylate as cross-linker. The obtained DMIPs were characterized in detail, and their adsorbing and recognition performance were evaluated. The results showed that the DMIPs exhibited specific recognition towards six AAs with large adsorption capacity. The dummy molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction (DMISPE) conditions including elution/washing solutions and sample loading volumes were optimized. Under optimum conditions, a convenient and efficient method for the determination of AAs in environmental water samples based on DMISPE coupling with hydrophilic interaction-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was established. The developed method showed good linearity with correlation coefficients higher than 0.9921 for all the analytes and good recoveries (70.8–108.3%) with relative standard deviations from 2.6 to 11.4% spiked at three different concentration levels in water samples. The limit of detection (S/N = 3) ranged from 0.006 to 0.6 ng/mL. The results demonstrated good potential of DMIPs for sample pretreatment of trace AAs in environmental water samples. Schematic illustration of the synthetic process of dummy molecularly imprinted polymers for determination of aminoglycoside antibiotics in environmental water samples. [Display omitted] •Dummy molecularly imprinted polymers (DMIPs) for aminoglycoside antibiotics was prepared.•Raffinose was used as the dummy template for synthesizing polymers.•DMISPE coupled with HILIC-LC-MS/MS method was developed for analysis of aminoglycoside antibiotics.•The developed method was simple and sensitive.