Search Results (98)

Food contaminants, including plasticizers, pesticide residues, heavy metals, and biotoxins, pose persistent risks to food quality and human health. Their diverse sources, complex migration pathways, and potential long-term toxicity make removal difficult. Conventional removal technologies, such as physical treatment, chemical degradation, adsorption, membrane separation, and biological methods, can reduce contaminant levels to varying degrees. However, they often show limited selectivity, matrix interference, harsh operating requirements, or losses of nutritional and functional components. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are synthetic recognition materials with binding sites tailored to a target contaminant. Their template-induced cavities provide complementarity in size, shape, and functional-group arrangement, enabling selective adsorption in complex matrices. Recent studies apply MIPs to the enrichment, detection, and removal of plasticizers, pesticide residues, heavy metals, and biotoxins. Unlike recent surveys centered on MIP-assisted analysis and sensing, this review uses contaminant removal as the organizing problem and compares MIP-based strategies with conventional decontamination across four hazard classes. MIPs offer tunable selectivity, chemical stability, and reusability, but practical food applications still face template leakage, slow mass transfer, incomplete safety evaluation, matrix dependence, and scale-up limitations. Future work should prioritize green synthesis, surface imprinting, magnetic recovery, and systematic validation in real food matrices. To prevent analytical extraction from being conflated with remediation, the evidence is classified from proof-of-binding and analytical cleanup to edible-matrix treatment and process validation, and representative studies are compared using capacity, removal or recovery, equilibration time, selectivity, reuse, and matrix validation. Recent evidence also reveals substantial gaps for PFAS, microplastics, and nanoplastics: selective recognition is advancing, but food-safe removal remains largely unvalidated. Full article

The compositional complexity of plant-derived food matrices and the structural diversity of phenolic compounds influence sample preparation, promoting miniaturized solid-phase extraction using advanced sorbents for their determination. This critical systematic review examines these sorbents over the 2016–2025 period, organizing the analysis according to their structural platform to investigate how their architecture is associated with the reported interaction mechanisms, to interpret analytical performance in the appropriate context, and to identify methodological trends, limitations, and knowledge gaps. Through a systematic search in Scopus and the application of predefined eligibility criteria, 37 studies were selected and included in the critical narrative synthesis. The analysis primarily covered molecularly imprinted sorbents, functionalized polymeric and carbon-based platforms, and layered inorganic materials. Magnetic separation using Fe₃O₄ emerged as the most widely employed operational strategy across the analyzed platforms, while flavonoids and phenolic acids were the predominant target subclasses. Identified gaps include the infrequent evaluation of matrix effects, the limited formal assessment of method sustainability, and the scarce experimental validation of the relative contribution of retention mechanisms in systems involving multiple simultaneous interactions. By organizing the available evidence according to sorbent structural platform, this review provides a critical framework for interpreting analytical performance, informing the rational design of advanced sorbents, and supporting the development of miniaturized solid-phase extraction techniques for food analysis. Full article

Neonicotinoids are a novel class of insecticides that exhibit environmental persistence and off-target effects on both humans and ecosystems. Therefore, there is a need for sensitive and selective sensors to monitor concentrations of neonicotinoids in environmental water and soil systems. Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP)-based sensors are an emerging technology with strong potential for reliable, sensitive, and selective detection of neonicotinoids. Moreover, MIPs are versatile and compatible with a wide range of analytical techniques, which can further enhance measurement capabilities in the development of practical and robust sensors. Despite this promise, many routes remain underexplored for neonicotinoid detection. This review reports on the current state of neonicotinoid chemical sensors and detection methods using MIPs and highlights potential applications of MIP-based approaches as cost-effective and easy-to-operate solutions for monitoring neonicotinoids. Recent sensors incorporating MIPs and electrochemical or optical techniques for neonicotinoid detection are described and compared. Approaches employing magnetic solid-phase extraction and quartz crystal microbalance are also discussed. Additionally, the influence of monomer choice for MIP synthesis, as well as the use of additives and nanomaterials for sensor construction and analyte detection, is reviewed. These methods may promote sustainability, reusability, ratiometric or simultaneous detection of neonicotinoids, and sensor portability for on-site monitoring. Full article

Accurate and sensitive determination of hormones in biological matrices is essential for clinical diagnostics, therapeutic monitoring, and endocrine research. However, hormone determination presents significant challenges due to their typically low concentrations, complex sample matrices, and structural diversity. In recent years, microextraction techniques have emerged as strategic tools in bioanalytical chemistry, offering advantages in terms of miniaturization, enhanced selectivity, and compatibility with the principles of green analytical chemistry (GAC). This review provides a comprehensive overview of green and emerging microextraction approaches for the determination of steroidal, thyroid, peptide, and other hormones in biological samples. Key techniques such as solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction (DLLME), followed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to diode array detectors (DADs) or mass spectrometry (MS), are critically discussed. Special emphasis is placed on the use of environmentally friendly solvents, such as deep eutectic solvents (DESs), supramolecular solvents (SUPRASs), and advanced sorbents including molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) and nanostructured magnetic phases. Applications across various bioanalytical matrices (urine, plasma, serum, saliva, tissues…) are examined in terms of sensitivity, selectivity, and validation parameters. Finally, current challenges, method development gaps, and future directions are highlighted to support the continued advancement of sustainable hormone determination in complex biological systems. Full article

Wastewater analysis plays a central role in monitoring patterns of drug use within specific populations. It provides objective and real-time estimates of consumption, with minimal ethical concerns. In the current European context, drugs of abuse continue to be detected in wastewater, with varying incidences across countries. Their monitoring enables the prioritisation of public health and legal interventions by healthcare professionals and drug monitoring agencies. Therefore, the development and implementation of efficient methodologies for monitoring drugs of abuse in wastewater samples is of critical importance. This systematic review aims to explore the use of miniaturised sample extraction techniques based on solid-phase microextraction for the determination of drugs of abuse in wastewater. In fact, the extraction procedure must be fast, effective, and selective in order to retain the analytes of interest. Miniaturised techniques have thus emerged as promising alternatives to conventional methods. Magnetic solid-phase extraction (MSPE) and molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) represent the most widely applied solid-phase microextraction techniques in recent years for the analysis of drugs of abuse in wastewater. Looking ahead, future perspectives include the development of eco-friendly workflows, automated and time-efficient techniques, increasingly selective sorbents, and robust analytical methods. Full article

This research introduces magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (MMIPs) as a novel tool for the efficient extraction and detection of pesticide residues in food products. The MMIPs exhibit a notable adsorption capacity ranging from 15.70 to 23.57 mg g⁻¹, showcasing their efficacy in preconcentrating multiple pesticides. By leveraging Low-Temperature Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LTP-MS) in conjunction with MMIP-based sample pretreatment, the study achieves rapid screening of 108 pesticides in agricultural products, boasting a detection sensitivity of 86.9%. The MMIPs demonstrate exceptional selectivity, enabling swift separation in an external magnetic field, thereby reducing reliance on chemical reagents and facilitating multiple reuses. Rigorous evaluation of the MMIPs’ binding properties, magnetic separation efficiency, and reusability underscores their potential for class-selective enrichment of pesticide residues. The MMIPs were meticulously characterized using a comprehensive array of analytical techniques, including FT-IR spectrometry, SEM, TEM, VSM, and UV–vis spectrophotometry. Remarkably, the MMIPs’ performance in pesticide extraction yielded promising results, with successful qualitative detection of 78 out of 87 identified pesticides in cucumber samples, 71 out of 85 identified pesticides in tomato samples, 55 out of 64 identified pesticides in cabbage samples, and 42 out of 48 identified pesticides in leek samples, achieving recovery rates within the range of 60.12% to 119.84% for 50.91% of the identified pesticides. The screening detection limit (SDL) for the 86 pesticides in the MMMIP-LTP-MS method was set according to the corresponding maximum residue limit (MRL) in the National Food Safety Standard of China (GB 2763-2021). The quantification limits of MMMIPs-LC-TQ-MS ranged from 0.000043 to 5.52 µg g⁻¹, with recoveries between 60.12% and 119.84%. These findings underscore the significant impact of MMIP-based sample preparation in enhancing the precision and efficiency of high-throughput determination of pesticide residues in food products. Full article

Tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) is a flame retardant widely added to polymer products. Successful isolation of target analytes from complex natural matrices relies on extraction materials that can selectively interact with the analytes. In this context, the use of magnetic nanostructured adsorbents, such as magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer systems (MMIPs), can play a key role in both selective matrix–analyte interactions and separation processes. Here, to achieve different TBBPA loadings, Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles (NPs) were coated with chitosan (CS) or (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES). Moreover, to further promote template–NP interactions and modulate the polymeric shell thickness of MMIPs, 3,4-dihydroxyhydrocinnamic acid (HC) was covalently bonded in different amounts to APTES-functionalized MNPs. Thermal, SEM, and elemental analyses showed a different coating degree of the nanocomposites (Fe₃O₄@CS-MIP size d = 77 nm and Fe₃O₄@APTES-MIP d = 20 nm). In addition, it was confirmed that the adsorption mechanism of TBBPA on Fe₃O₄@APTES-HCX-MIPs was due to specific interactions between the systems and the analyte, unlike non-imprinted analogs (MNIPs). Among the developed systems, the Fe3O4@APTES-HC0.7-MIP sample showed the best extraction efficiency (85%) associated with good discharge efficiency (70%). Furthermore, this nanocomposite displayed high selectivity towards TBBPA (ε > 1) and good extraction efficiency in three consecutive cycles (67%), demonstrating great potential in the environmental field. Full article

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are emerging as efficient materials for environmental remediation due to their dual functionality in selective pollutant adsorption and catalytic degradation. This review examines recent advances in MIP-based technologies, focusing on their role in photocatalysis and advanced oxidation processes. Experimental findings highlight impressive degradation efficiencies, such as 95.8% methylene blue degradation using ZnO/CuFe₂O₄ MIPs and a 60% improvement in refractory organic degradation with TiO₂-MIPs. Adsorption studies show high uptake capacities, including 273.65 mg/g for ciprofloxacin with MOF-supported MIPs and 2350.52 µg/g for rhodamine B using magnetic MIPs. Despite these advancements, several challenges remain, including issues with long-term stability, scalability, and economic feasibility. Future research should prioritize optimizing polymer synthesis, integrating MIPs with high-surface-area matrices like MOFs and COFs and enhancing recyclability to ensure sustained performance. MIPs hold significant potential for large-scale water treatment and pollution control, provided their stability and efficiency are further improved. Full article

Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a natural active compound widely found in many plants belonging to the family of Lamiaceae, Boraginaceae, and so on, which has various important bioactivities, including being anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, etc. Herein, novel hydrophilic magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (HMMIPs) with a regular core-shell structure were successfully developed using RA as a template molecule, acrylamide (AM) as a functional monomer, N-N ’methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) as a cross-linking agent, and water as the porogen. After a series of characterization and adsorption performance analyses, it was found that HMMIPs are hydrophilic with an adsorption capacity of 8.012 ± 0.54 mg/g, an imprinting factor of 3.64, and a selectivity coefficient of 2.63~2.91. Furthermore, the HMMIPs can be rapidly separated from other components under the influence of external magnetic fields. The HMMIPs were employed for the determination of RA present in the Perilla frutescens and Rosmarinus officinalis aqueous extract with recoveries of 88.2~107.3%. These results indicated that HMMIPs of RA have the benefits of straightforward operation, rapid adsorption, and high selectivity, rendering it an appropriate way for the expedient and selective isolation of RA in an intricate matrix. Full article

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) can specifically recognize template molecules in solution with imprinted cavities. Due to their capacity for scalable production, they can be used to isolate target products from natural products for industrial production in the fields of pharmaceuticals and food. In this study, magnetic single-template molecularly imprinted polymers (St-MIPs) instead of magnetic multi-template molecularly imprinted polymers (Mt-MIPs) were prepared by surface imprinting using Schizandrol A as a template molecule and deep eutectic solvent (DES) as a functional monomer, combined with solid-phase extraction (SPE) for the adsorption and separation of Schizandrol A, Schisantherin A, Schizandrin A, and Schizandrin B from Schisandra chinensis (Turcz.) Baill. (S. chinensis) fruits extracts. The synthesized MIPs were characterized by FT-IR, TEM, SEM, TG, XRD and VSM, and their adsorption properties were also evaluated. MIPs can specifically recognize the template molecules with high reusability. The purity of the total S. chinensis lignans after SPE was 74.05%, among which that of Schizandrol A, Schisantherin A, Schizandrin A, and Schizandrin B was 33.38%, 8.69%, 16.33% and 15.67%, respectively. Moreover, the one-step synthesis of carrier was easy to operate. And St-MIPs reduced the production cost compared with Mt-MIPs. This study provides a new idea for natural product separation by molecular imprinting technology (MIT). Full article

Despite advancements in the sensitivity and performance of analytical instruments, sample preparation remains a bottleneck in the analytical process. Currently, solid-phase extraction is more widely used than traditional organic solvent extraction due to its ease of use and lower solvent requirements. Moreover, various microextraction techniques such as micro solid-phase extraction, dispersive micro solid-phase extraction, solid-phase microextraction, stir bar sorptive extraction, liquid-phase microextraction, and magnetic bead extraction have been developed to minimize sample size, reduce solvent usage, and enable automation. Among these, in-tube solid-phase microextraction (IT-SPME) using capillaries as extraction devices has gained attention as an advanced “green extraction technique” that combines miniaturization, on-line automation, and reduced solvent consumption. Capillary tubes in IT-SPME are categorized into configurations: inner-wall-coated, particle-packed, fiber-packed, and rod monolith, operating either in a draw/eject system or a flow-through system. Additionally, the developments of novel adsorbents such as monoliths, ionic liquids, restricted-access materials, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), graphene, carbon nanotubes, inorganic nanoparticles, and organometallic frameworks have improved extraction efficiency and selectivity. MIPs, in particular, are stable, custom-made polymers with molecular recognition capabilities formed during synthesis, making them exceptional “smart adsorbents” for selective sample preparation. The MIP fabrication process involves three main stages: pre-arrangement for recognition capability, polymerization, and template removal. After forming the template-monomer complex, polymerization creates a polymer network where the template molecules are anchored, and the final step involves removing the template to produce an MIP with cavities complementary to the template molecules. This review is the first paper to focus on advanced MIP-based IT-SPME, which integrates the selectivity of MIPs into efficient IT-SPME, and summarizes its recent developments and applications. Full article

Lead (Pb) is a hazardous metal that poses a significant threat to both the environment and human health. The presence of Pb in food products such as honey can pose a significant risk to human health and is therefore important to detect and monitor. In this study, we propose a voltammetric detection method using molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) electrodes to detect Pb (II) ions in honey. Pb (II) ion-imprinted amino acid-based nanoparticles with magnetic properties on a carbon paste electrode (MIP-CPE) were designed to have high sensitivity and selectivity towards Pb (II) ions in the honey sample. Zetasizer measurements, electron spin resonance, and scanning electron microscopy were used to characterize magnetic polymeric nanoparticles. The results showed that the voltammetric detection method using MIP-CPE was able to accurately detect Pb (II) ions in honey samples with a low detection limit. The proposed method offers a simple, rapid, cost-effective solution for detecting Pb (II) ions in honey. It could potentially be applied to other food products to ensure their safety for human consumption. The MIP-CPE sensor was designed to have high sensitivity and selectivity towards Pb (II) ions in the honey sample. The results showed that the technique was able to deliver highly sensitive results since seven different concentrations were prepared and detected to obtain an R² of 0.9954, in addition to a low detection limit (LOD) of 0.0912 µM and a low quantification limit (LOQ) of 0.276 µM. Importantly, the analysis revealed no trace of Pb (II) ions in the honey samples obtained from Cyprus. Full article

A review of the application of matrix solid-phase dispersion (MSPD) in the extraction of biologically active compounds and impurities from plants and food samples with a particular emphasis on conventional and new types of sorbents has been provided. An overview of MSPD applications for the isolation of organic residues from biological samples, determined using chromatographic and spectroscopic techniques, has been presented. In this study, procedural solutions that may extend MSDP applicability for the extraction such as vortex-assisted, ultrasound-assisted, microwave-assisted, and extraction with a magnetic sorbent have been discussed. Special attention has been paid to MSPD sorbents including modified silica, diatomite, magnesium silicate, alumina, carbon materials (carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, graphene, or graphite), molecularly imprinted polymers, and cyclodextrin. An important aspect of the MSPD procedure is the use of high-purity and environmentally friendly solvents for extraction (e.g., deep eutectic solvents), with such criteria being the most important for modern analytical chemistry. Many advantages of MSPD are presented, such as high recoveries, the requirement for a smaller volume of solvent, and shorter procedure times than classical methods. Full article

In this study, a highly efficient magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer nanocomposite material was prepared using multi-walled carbon nanotubes as carriers. The characterization of the obtained nanocomposite material was conducted using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, a vibrating sample magnetometer, a thermogravimetric analyzer, a scanning electron microscope, and a transmission electron microscope. The adsorption properties of the nanocomposite material were evaluated through adsorption experiments, including static adsorption, dynamic adsorption, and selective recognition studies. The prepared nanocomposite material, serving as a selective adsorbent, was applied in magnetic solid-phase extraction. Subsequently, the derivatized samples were analyzed for glucose in fish serum using liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. Under optimal conditions, the detection limit was 0.30 ng/mL, the quantitation limit was 0.99 ng/mL, satisfactory spiked recovery rates were obtained, and the relative standard deviation was less than 1.1%. Using 2-deoxy-D-ribose as the template molecule and a structural analog of glucose allowed us to eliminate the potential template leakage in qualitative and quantitative analyses, effectively avoiding the issues of false positives and potential quantitative errors, compared to traditional methods. A method for detecting glucose levels in fish serum based on molecularly imprinted polymer technology has been successfully developed to determine the stress and health levels of fish. Full article

In the past few decades, considerable scientific strides have been made in the subject of drug analysis in human biological samples. However, the risk caused by incorrect drug plasma levels in patients still remains an important concern. This review paper attempts to investigate the advances made over the last ten years in common sample preparation techniques (SPT) for biological samples based on solid sorbents, including solid-phase extraction (SPE) and solid-phase micro-extraction (SPME), and in particular in the field of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), including non-stimuli-responsive and stimuli-responsive adsorbents. This class of materials is known as ‘smart adsorbents’, exhibiting tailored responses to various stimuli such as magnetic fields, pH, temperature, and light. Details are provided on how these advanced SPT are changing the landscape of modern drug analysis in their coupling with liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analytical techniques, a general term that includes high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC), as well as any variation of MS, such as tandem (MS/MS), multiple-stage (MSⁿ), and high-resolution (HRMS) mass spectrometry. Some notes are also provided on coupling with less-performing techniques, such as high-performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet (HPLC-UV) and diode array detection (HPLC-DAD) detection. Finally, we provide a general review of the difficulties and benefits of the proposed approaches and the future prospects of this research area. Full article