Preparation of magnetic superhydrophilic molecularly imprinted composite resin based on multi-walled carbon nanotubes to detect triazines in environmental water

In this work, a superhydrophilic surface imprinting composite resin was constructed for selective enrichment of triazines, which was first fabricated by one-pot condensation of formaldehyde, resorcinol and melamine on the surface of the magnetic multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs@Fe₃O₄). The effect of the amount of template (ametryn) on the imprinting performance was investigated. The FT-IR, VSM, XRD, SEM and water contact test indicated that the magnetic multi-walled carbon nanotubes imprinting resin (MWNTs@Fe₃O₄@MIR) was successfully prepared and exhibited superhydrophilic and excellent magnetic separation characteristics. The isothermal adsorption, selectivity and adsorption kinetics tests indicated that the prepared MWNTs@Fe₃O₄@MIR had better specific recognition for triazines. The adsorption isotherm obeyed Freundlich isotherm model and adsorption kinetic matched pseudo-second-order kinetic model well. Under the optimized conditions, the MWNTs@Fe₃O₄@MIR was successfully applied as selective adsorbent for the direct enrichment and determination of triazines in environmental water samples combined with HPLC-MS/MS. The established method exhibited good linearity (R² ≥ 0.9987), lower limit of detection (0.007–0.068 μg L⁻¹), and excellent precision (RSD < 9%). The surface imprinted strategy based on MWNTs@Fe₃O₄ developed a new way for the preparation of superhydrophilic magnet imprinting nanocomposites, which exhibited a perspective in the determination of triazines in water.