Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIP) for Selective Solid Phase Extraction of Celecoxib in Urine Samples Followed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography

In this study, for the analysis of human urine samples, a novel method explained for the determination of celecoxib, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), using molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The synthesis of the MIP was performed by precipitation polymerization in methacrylic acid (MAA), ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA), chloroform, 2,2′-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) and celecoxib as the functional monomer, cross-linker monomer, solvent, initiator and target drug, respectively. The celecoxib imprinted polymer was utilized as a specific sorbent for the solid phase extraction (SPE) of celecoxib from samples. The molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) performance was compared with the synthesized non-molecularly imprinted polymer (NIP). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), FT-IR spectroscopy, UV-VIS spectrophotometry and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA/DTG) were used for characterizing the synthesized polymers. Moreover, the MISPE procedure parameters such as pH, eluent solvent flow rate, eluent volume and sorbent mass that probably influence the extraction process have been optimized to achieve the highest celecoxib extraction efficiency. The relative standard deviation (RSD %), recovery percent, limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of this proposed method were 1.12%, 96%, 8 µg L-1 and 26.7 µg L-1, respectively. The proposed MISPE-HPLC-UV method can be used for the separation and enrichment of trace amounts of celecoxib in human urine and biological samples.