Magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer based on coordination for the determination of trace banned substance furosemide in human urine

Abstract

Furosemide (FUR), banned in sports events by the World Anti‐Doping Agency, is a key target in drug tests, necessitating a pretreatment material capable of selectively, rapidly, and sufficiently separating/enriching analytes from complex matrices. Herein, a metal‐mediated magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (mMIP) was rationally designed and synthesized for the specific capture of FUR. The preparations involved the utilization of chromium (III) as the binding pivot, (3‐aminopropyl)triethoxysilane as functional monomer, and Fe3O4 as core, all assembled via free radical polymerization. Both the morphologies and adsorptive properties of the mMIP were characterized using multiple methods. The resulting Cr(III)‐mediated mMIP (ChM‐mMIP) presented excellent selectivity and specificity toward FUR. Under optimized conditions, the adsorption capacity reached 128.50 mg/g within 10 min, and the imprinting factor was 10.41. Moreover, it was also successfully applied as a dispersive solid‐phase extraction material, enabling the detection of FUR concentration as low as 20 ng/mL in human urine samples when coupled with a high‐performance liquid chromatography/photodiode array. Overall, this study offers a valuable strategy for the development of novel recognition material.