Sulfonated poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) modified with amines and the application for pipette-tip solid-phase extraction of carbendazim in apples.

Sulfonated poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) modified with five kinds of amine functional groups was applied to the determination of carbendazim in apple samples with a pipette-tip solid-phase extraction method. The structures of the polymers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. Five different modifications of the solid-phase extraction sorbent based on sulfonated poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) were tested under static and pipette-tip solid-phase extraction conditions. The polymer modified with p-methoxyaniline showed the best recognition capacity and adsorption amount for carbendazim. Under the optimum conditions, 3.00 mg of the adsorbent, 1.00 mL of ethyl acetate as washing solvent, and 1.00 mL of ammonia/acetonitrile (5:95, v/v) as elution solvent were used in the pretreatment procedure of apple samples. The calibration graphs of carbendazim in methanol were linear over 5.00-200.00 μg/mL, and the limits of detection and quantification were 0.01 and 0.03 μg/mL, respectively. The method recoveries of carbendazim were in the range of 91.31-98.13% with associated intraday relative standard deviations of 0.76-2.13% and interday relative standard deviations of 1.10-1.85%. Sulfonated poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) modified with p-methoxyaniline showed satisfactory results (recovery: 97.96%) and potential for the rapid purification of carbendazim in apple samples combined with the pipette-tip solid-phase extraction.