Electrochemically controlled solid-phase microextraction based on conductive molecularly imprinted polymer combined with ion mobility spectrometry for separation and determination of thiopental

In this work, electrochemically controlled solid-phase microextraction (EC-SPME) based on conductive molecularly imprinted polymer (CMIP) is coupled with ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for analysis of thiopental (TP) as an anesthesia drug. The CMIP film was synthesized on the modified stainless steel wire surface by electropolymerization of pyrrole in the presence of TP as the template anion. Under the optimal experimental conditions, the developed method offered good linear range from 3.3 to 200 mu M with coefficients of determination more than 0.99. Using these conditions, the detection limit of 1.1 mu M was obtained. The single-fiber relative standard deviations (RSD %) were 3.7 and the fiber-to-fiber RSDs were 5.6 respectively. The developed EC-SPME-IMS was carried out to confirm the ability of the proposed method for determination of TP in the serum matrices. It was indicated that the proposed EC-SPME-IMS provides effective sample clean-up for the analysis of TP in complex matrices. Additionally, EC-SPME-IMS showed great potential for fast, sensitive, and low-cost detection of TP without spectra interfering of co-administered drugs and similar structural compounds (barbituric acid).

Automated summary

The EC-SPME-IMS method successfully determined TP anesthesia drug with good linear range and detection limit, suitable for analysis in complex matrices.