Solid-phase extraction of caffeine and catechin compounds from green tea by caffeine molecular imprinted polymer

Abstract

In this work, caffeine and some catechin compounds + C, EC, EGC, and EGCG were extracted from green tea by using molecular imprinted polymers (MIP) as sorbent materials in a solid-phase extraction (SPE) process known as MISPE (molecular imprinted solid-phase extraction). For synthesis of MIP, caffeine was employed as the template, MAA as the monomer, EGDMA as the crosslinker, and AIBN as the initiator. A solution of caffeine (0.2 mg/mL in methanol) was utilized in the solid extraction cartridges following loading, washing, and elution procedures with acetonitrile, methanol, and methanol-acetic acid (90/10, %v/v) as the solvents, respectively. This solid-phase extraction protocol was applied for the extraction of caffeine and some catechin compounds from green tea. A comparison was made between the results obtained with the MIP cartridges and a traditional C18 reversed-phase cartridge. It was thereupon found that the recovery of caffeine by the MIP-based sorbent used in this work was almost two and four times greater than that by a commercially available C18 material. A quantitative analysis was conducted by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using a C18 column (5 μm, 250 x 4.6 mm) with methanol/water (40/60, %v/v) as the mobile phase at a flow rate of 0.5 mL/min.