Determination of Profenofos in Fruits and Vegetables Using Molecularly Imprinted Solid-Phase Extraction Coupled with High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

A molecularly imprinted solid phase extraction-high performance liquid chromatography (MISPE-HPLC) method has been developed for the determination of profenofos in fruits and vegetables. Molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) of profenofos were synthesized using hydrothermal polymerization, with profenofos as the template, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross-linking agent, and methacrylic acid as the functional monomer. The optimized MIPs exhibited excellent recognition capability and were subsequently employed as the stationary phase in solid-phase extraction columns. The method exhibited a good linear relationship for profenofos in the concentration range of 0.5 × 10−8 to 2.0 × 10−6 mol/L with a correlation coefficient of 0.9997. The detection limit was determined to be 0.15 × 10−8 mol/L (signal-to-noise ratio S/N = 3). Recovery studies at three different fortification levels (0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/kg) showed recoveries ranging from 85.9% to 101.6%, from relative standard deviations between 2.91% and 7.03%. The results demonstrate that the proposed method is accurate, efficient, specific, and reproducible, making it suitable for the determination of profenofos in fruits and vegetables.