Enrichment of five fluoroquinolones from milk, pork and chicken samples with cyano-functionalized cationic porous polymer.

Sensitive monitoring of trace fluoroquinolones (FQs) in animal-derived foods holds significant importance for safeguarding human health. Herein, an imidazolium cation and cyanogroup co-functionalized porous organic polymer (ICN-POP) was synthesized for the first time. Except that ICN-POP possess large specific area, the cationic imidazolium moieties and cyanogroups in ICN-POP can serve as electrostatic interaction sites and hydrogen bond acceptors, respectively, which may synergistically promote FQ capture. ICN-POP demonstrated excellent adsorption performance towards FQs, especially in neutral and alkaline environments, primarily through electrostatic attraction, π-π stacking and hydrogen bonding. Coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, solid-phase extraction employing ICN-POP as the adsorbent was applied to develop a sensitive method for detecting five FQs in milk, pork and chicken samples. This work not only provides a reliable alternative approach for FQs detection in complex food matrices, but also confirms the application potential of ICN-POP for high-efficiency capture of polar pollutants.