Preconcentration and Determination of Zearalenone in Corn Oil by a One-Step Prepared Polydopamine-Based Magnetic Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (MIP) with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography with Fluorescence (HPLC-FLD) Detection

Abstract

A polydopamine-based molecularly imprinted polymer with quercetin as the mimic template was deposited on the surface of ferroferric oxide nanoparticles (Fe₃O₄@PDA MIPs) and used for the purification and enrichment of zearalenone prior to the determination by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD). Adsorption experiments showed that the maximum capacity of Fe₃O₄@PDA MIPs toward zearalenone was 1.49 mg/g and the process matched the Langmuir isotherm model. Parameters of the analysis, such as the mass of MIPs, pH, ultrasonication time, elution solvent and volume, were optimized. Good linearity with the zearalenone concentration from 1 to 20 ng/mL was obtained (R = 0.9998). The limit of detection was 0.68 ng/mL. The recoveries from spiked corn oil samples were 93.8% to 101.0% with relative standard deviations from 6.5% to 9.1%. In addition, reusability experiments indicated that Fe₃O₄@PDA MIPs may be reemployed at least 7 times. These results demonstrate that the prepared Fe₃O₄@PDA MIPs were effective for the selective preconcentration of zearalenone from corn oil. The developed method was more reliable, faster, and lower cost than the National Standard Method of China.

Keywords:

• High-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FLD)
• magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers
• polydopamine
• refined corn oil
• zearalenone

Disclosure statement

No conflicts of interest are reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Jiangxi Provincial Science and Technology Department Fund Project (No. 20192BBG70009, 20192BBG70008) and the Doctoral Startup Research Fund for Nanchang Normal University (No. NSBSJJ2020002).