Materials and methods for the detection of trace amounts of substances in biological and environmental samples

A method of detecting one or more template analytes in a sample, comprising:

• providing a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) sorbent material, the sorbent material being prepared via a sol-gel process employing one or more sulfonamide drugs as the template analyte(s), 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane and triethoxyphenylsilane as sol-gel precursors, tetramethyl orthosilicate as a cross-linking agent, hydrochloric acid as a reaction catalyst, water as a hydrolytic agent, and isopropanol and methanol as solvents;
• packaging dried MIP sorbent material in an extraction apparatus selected from a syringe and a solid-phase extraction cartridge;
• providing a fluid sample;
• passing the fluid sample through the extraction apparatus;
• and
• quantifying the concentration of the template analyte(s) in the eluent of the MIP sorbent material.

A method of synthesizing a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) matrix, comprising:

• mixing a template analyte with a mixture of sol-gel precursors to form a template-precursor complex, the mixture of sol-gel precursors comprising 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane and triethoxyphenylsilane;
• hydrolyzing the sol-gel precursors of the template-precursor complex and a cross-linking agent with a hydrolytic agent in the presence of a reaction catalyst;
• combining the hydrolyzed cross-linking agent with the template-precursor complex having hydrolyzed sol-gel precursors;
• allowing a sol-gel polymer network to form surrounding the template analyte;
• and
• extracting the template analyte using a solvent, leaving behind molecular cavities in the sol-gel polymer network that are complementary in size, shape, and functionality to the template analyte.