Determination of sulfadiazine in eggs using molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography

The development of a simple and effective method for the isolation and purification of sulfadiazine residues in food of animal origin is of great significance since it is a great danger to human health. An off-line molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction with high-performance liquid chromatography method was proposed for the selective pretreatment and determination of sulfadiazine in eggs, rapidly and effectively. The molecularly imprinted polymer was proved to have a homogeneous spherical structure and porous surface morphology with excellent adsorption capacity of 5258 μg/g for sulfadiazine. The newly established method showed a good linearity in the range of 0–200 μg/L, low limits of detection (0.06 μg/L), acceptable reproducibility (RSD, 2.60–5.03%, n = 3), and satisfactory relative recoveries (78.22–86.10%). It was demonstrated that the proposed molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction with high-performance liquid chromatography method could be applied to determine sulfadiazine in eggs, which simplified the pretreatment procedure and improved the accuracy of the analysis process by reducing the loss of sulfadiazine in the fat-removing procedure compared with traditional methods. Molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction with excellent selectivity and adsorption capacity is a simple, rapid, selective, and effective pretreatment method for the determination of sulfadiazine in egg samples.