Migration detection of six aromatic amines in polyamide food contact materials by HPLC after molecularly imprinted polymer pipette tip solid phase extraction

Some food contact materials (FCMs) may contain aromatic amines (AAs), which would migrate to food and pose a serious threat to human health. An extraction and determination method for AAs was established using pipette tip solid-phase extraction (PTSPE) combined with high performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array detector (HPLC-PAD). The PTSPE was based on molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) monolith, which was synthesized in situ polymerization using benzidine as template molecule and 4-vinylpyridine as functional monomer . It was applied for selective extraction of six AAs from FCMs, including benzidine, 3,3′-dimethyl-4,4′-diaminodiphenylmethane, 2-methoxy-5-methylaniline, 3,3′-dimethoxybenzidine, 4,4′-methylenedianiline and 4-aminobiphenyl. The MIP monolith showed highly specific recognition and good adsorption ability for the six AAs, the imprinting factor for 4,4′-methylenedianiline can reach 4.29 and the adsorption capacity for 4-aminobiphenyl can reach 112.3 mg g −1 . The linear range of the determination method for the six AAs was 0.60–500 µg kg −1 (R 2 ＞0.997), the limits of quantitation was 0.60–4.50 µg kg −1 and the limits of detection (S/N = 3) was 0.20–1.50 µg kg −1 . The MIP-PTSPE-HPLC-PAD method was applied for the migration detection of six AAs from polyamide kitchenware and the absolute recovery were 81.7–110.9%.