Hypercrosslinked core-shell polymer microspheres with amphipathic and amphoteric character for the solid-phase extraction of acidic and basic pharmaceuticals from environmental waters

/g) and amphoteric character. The latter feature means that these microspheres offer both anion-exchange and cation-exchange interactions, which makes the SPE of anions and cations possible. Following synthesis, an SPE protocol using these microspheres as sorbent was optimized and validated using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for the simultaneous retention of acidic and basic pharmaceuticals present in complex water samples. The inclusion of a clean-up step reduced matrix interferences. The method developed achieved satisfactory apparent recoveries (23-75% for river water, 20-88% for effluent wastewater, and 19-56% for influent wastewater), low matrix effects, detection limits within 0.05-2 ng/L for most compounds, and good repeatability and reproducibility across all sample matrices. Application of the SPE method to real environmental samples confirmed the presence of several target pharmaceuticals at ng/L concentration levels, demonstrating the applicability of the hypercrosslinked core-shell sorbent.