Preparation and Characterization of Metolachlor Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Coating on Stainless Steel Fibers for Solid-Phase Microextraction

A molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) with metolachlor as the template molecule was first coated on the surface of stainless steel fibers through chemical bonding. Despite 12 times repeated coating procedures, a homogenous, porous, and highly cross-linked MIP coating was obtained with thickness of 17.4 µm (RSD of 6.1%). The specific selectivity of MIP coating to metolachlor and three metabolites could be concluded with 4.4, 4.1, 3.9, and 2.9 times higher extraction amounts of metolachlor, hydroxymetolachlor, deschlorometolachlor, and desmethylmetolachlor than that of the NIP coating, respectively, and good extraction capabilities for chloroacetanilide herbicides were found with the MIP-coated SPME stainless steel fiber. For validation, the fiber was applied for the extraction of metolachlor, propisochlor, and butachlor in spiked corn and soybean samples, and the recoveries of 90.7–92.6%, 86.4–87.9, and 85.4–87.5% were obtained, respectively.