Determination of benzimidazole anthelmintics in milk and honey by monolithic fiber-based solid-phase microextraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection

A porous poly(methacrylic acid-co-ethylene dimethacrylate) monolithic fiber (MEMF) for solid-phase microextraction (SPME) of five benzimidazole anthelmintics was prepared by in-situ polymerization. The effect of polymerization conditions on SPME of the target analytes was studied thoroughly. The physicochemical properties of the monolith were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, elemental analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and mercury intrusion porosimetry. Several conditions affecting the extraction efficiency were investigated and, under the optimized conditions, a simple and sensitive method for the determination of trace benzimidazoles residues in milk and honey was established by coupling MEMF-SPME with high-performance liquid chromatography-diode array detection (MEMF-SPME-HPLC-DAD). Under the optimum experimental conditions, the limits of detection (S/N = 3) of the method were 0.11-0.30 mu g L-1 for milk and 0.086-0.28 mu g L-1 for honey. Evaluation of intra-day and inter-day precision showed reproducibility was satisfactory-relative standard deviations (RSD) for both were < 10 %. Finally, the method was successfully used for determination of benzimidazole residues in milk and honey. Recoveries obtained for determination of benzimidazole anthelmintics in spiked samples ranged from 72.3 to 121 %, with RSD always < 11 %.