Abstract: A poly(2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid-co-ethylene dimethacrylate) (AMPS-co-EDMA) monolith was prepared in a fused-silica capillary (530 μm i.d.) and applied for polymer monolith microextraction (PMME). With the optimal ratio of N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF, porogen) and polyethylene glycol (PEG, co-porogen), the resulting monolith exhibited satisfactory permeability, high mechanical strength and good stability in aqueous buffer. The effects of several parameters to PMME were investigated, such as pH value, inorganic salt and organic phase concentration of the sample matrix. It demonstrated that the melamine was captured on the poly(AMPS-co-EDMA) monolith mainly through strong cation-exchange and hydrophobic interactions. A novel approach is presented for the determination of melamine in milk products by coupling PMME to high performance liquid chromatography with ultraviolet detection. Because of the high extraction capacity of the monolith towards melamine, low detection limits (S/N=3, 0.09 mg/kg) and quantification limits (S/N=10, 0.3 mg/kg) were obtained. The method showed good linearity ranging from 0.5 to 80 mg/kg. Excellent reproducibility of the method was exhibited by intraday and interday precisions, yielding the relative standard deviations not larger than 7.5%. The proposed method is simple, rapid, sensitive, and low cost.

Key words: 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid (AMPS), melamine, milk products , polymer monolith, strong cation-exchange