Abstract: A molecularly imprinted nanoshell was prepared successfully by using dibenzyl phthalate (DBzP) as template and silica microspheres as supporter based on the combination of the molecular imprinting technique, sol-gel and seed-mediated growth synthesis. The imprinted microspheres were characterized by FT-IR and SEM. Meanwhile, a series of adsorption experiments were performed to investigate the adsorption characterization of the imprinted particles. The imprinted particles reached an adsorption equilibrium within 30 min, and the adsorption behavior was in accordance with the pseudo second order model. The maximum adsorption was up to 47.35 mg/g at ambient temperature. The adsorption isotherms of DBzP onto the imprinted particles were well described by Langmuir isotherm model, Freundlich isotherm model and Scatchard model at different temperature, respectively. The results indicated that the Langmuir isotherm model was more suitable to describe the adsorption process than Freundlich model. The Scatchard analysis suggested that the imprinted particles had only one binding site with homogeneous distribution trait. The imprinted particles also showed an more excellent selectivity to DBzP than other four structural analogues. The rebinding capacities of the imprinted particles remained 83% after 10 cycles of adsorption-desorption under the relatively mild regeneration conditions. Simultaneously,the method for the determination of DBzP in plastic package samples via the imprinted particles coupled with UPLC was developed, it was also successfully applied in the analysis of DBzP in two spiked plastic package samples with average recoveries of 88.8%-93.1% and the relative standard deviation lower than 6%.Thus, the imprinted polymer is one of outstanding candidate materials for extraction of DBzP in food or their packaging materials.
Template and target information: dibenzyl phthalate, DBzP
Author keywords: seed-mediated growth synthesis, silica microparticle, imprinting nanoshell, dibenzyl phthalate, food packaging materials