Highly selective magnetic dual-template molecularly imprinted polymer for simultaneous removal and clean-up of nitenpyram and imidacloprid from light and dark honey

ABSTRACT

This study presents a newly developed selective and sensitive dual-template molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MIPs) for simultaneous removal and clean up of nitenpyram (NIT) and imidacloprid (IMI) pesticide residues from light and dark honey samples. Determination and quantification of both pesticides were performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, UHPLC-MS/MS. The sorbent MIPs best recoveries were obtained with 60 mg of sorbent MIPs, adsorption time of 20 min, and sample pH of 7. Low method limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were achieved, ranging from 0.03 to 0.09 µg L⁻¹ and 0.06 to 0.12 µg L⁻¹, respectively. Intra-day precision and inter-day precision (RSD) varied between 0.6% and 2.0% and 5.0% to 13.0%, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied to honey samples with obtained mean recoveries in the range of 95.2% to 108% and 94.3% to 105% for NIT and IMI.

KEYWORDS:

• Nitenpyram
• imidacloprid
• molecularly imprinted polymer nanoparticles (MIPs)
• ultra high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS)
• honey

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from Universiti Malaya Research Grants (IIRG002A-19SAH, RP018B-14AFR, and BK061-2017), Malaysia.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests or professional relationships that may have distorted their research in this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universiti Malaya through grant BK061-2017, IIRG002A-19SAH and RP018B-14AFR.