Imprinted materials induced by glow discharge electrolysis plasma for microcystin determination

In this work, a novel green approach for synthesizing molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for determination of microcystins (MCs) was established using N-carbobenzoxy- d -glutamic acid as virtual template and glow discharge plasma instead of the conventional chemical initiator. The results showed that under the conditions of glow discharge voltage of 660 V and discharge time of 20 min, the adsorption performance (Q max = 146.4 μg g −1 , K L = 19.13 mL μg −1 ) of MIPs prepared by glow discharge electrolytic plasma-initiated polymerization was superior to that of MIPs prepared by chemical initiators. The solid-phase extraction column self-made with the obtained MIPs has a better extraction effect for MCs than that of C18 column. Furthermore, a new method for the determination of microcystin-LR (MC-LR), microcystin-RR (MC-RR) and microcystin-LY (MC-LY) by molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was proposed with detection limits of 0.0313 μg L −1 , 0.318 μg L −1 and 0.675 μg L −1 , respectively, which were nearly two orders of magnitude lower than the control standard of MC-LR (1.0 μg L −1 ) in China's surface water environmental quality standards. Therefore, the analytical method proposed had good application prospects in MCs detection and water quality evaluation. Preparation of microcystin imprinted polymer using glow discharge electrolytic plasma induced polymerization. Using the prepared imprinted polymer, a SPE column was self-made to separate and purify MCs from water samples, and the MCs were determined by HPLC. • MIPs for the determination of MCs were synthesized, using N-carbobenzoxy- d -glutamic acid as pseudotemplate, using the glow discharge plasma in place of the conventional chemical initiator. • The adsorption performance of MIPs prepared by the glow discharge plasma was superior to MIPs prepared by chemical initiators. • A molecular imprinting SPE–HPLC method with high sensitivity, good selectivity and high accuracy was established for the determination of MCs in water. • MC-imprinted polymer prepared via glow discharge plasma polymerization enabled SPE-HPLC detection of MCs in water.