Fast Determination of Carbamates in Environmental Water Based on Magnetic Molecularly Imprinted Polymers as Adsorbent

Abstract Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (MMIPs) were prepared with isoprocarb as template molecule and applied to extraction of carbamates pesticides in different water samples. This method based on magnetic solid-phase extraction (SPE) avoided the time-consuming column-passing process of loading large volume samples in conventional SPE. In the study, only 0.1 g MMIPs could be used to obtain satisfactory recoveries, due to the high-surface area and excellent adsorption capacity of these nano-magnetic adsorbents. Owing to the excellent selectivity of MMIPs, in high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analysis, the matrix effects of this technique were obviously lower than the conventional SPE method. Under the optimal conditions, the detection limits of carbamates were in the range of 2.7–11.7 ng L−1. The relative standard deviations of intra-day and inter-day were 2.5–7.4% and 3.6–8.4%, respectively. At all the spiked level, the recoveries of four analyzed carbamates in environmental water samples were in the range of 74.2–94.2%. The significant positive results were achieved in the proposed method for the determination of four carbamates in water samples from different lakes and rivers. In the three samples we tested, the carbaryl was found in the lake water obtained from Yitong River, and the content was 2.4 ng L−1.