Since abuse of illicit drugs is a serious global problem therefore estimation of cocaine and benzoylecgonine is important in biological and environmental studies. Monitoring the cocaine and its metabolite benzoilecgonine, which can be treated as a marker of cocaine use, exerted with urine in waste waters is the method that provides to obtain realistic estimates of use of these compounds ¹. Samples of waste water are complex and impurities could interfere with quantification. To clean up the sample before the analysis the new, selective sorbents for solid phase extraction (SPE) are needed. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are highly cross-linked synthetic polymers having molecular recognition properties, towards the template molecules or even group of similar compounds, with specificity and binding selectivity² . In this studies, MIPs as a new cocaine and benzoilecgonine selective sorbents were presented.

Molecular modeling approach was used to find and optimize polymer components: template, functional monomer, cross-linker and porogen. In the MIPs synthesis as the templates, atropine and scopolamine were used. The synthesis based on non-covalent strategy. Simultaneously, the synthesis of non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) has been performed. The selectivity of new synthesized polymers has been estimated in binding and adsorption study. The concentrations of cocaine and its metabolite benzoylecgonine were measured in liquid phase by earlier optimized and validated HPLC method.

Selective sorbents used in this experiment appears to be sufficient materials that can be used in extraction step before qualitative or quantitative analysis of these compounds from wastewater. Selective recoveries obtained for cocaine and benzoylecgonine on newly developed MIP materials were from 77.1% to 92.1%, and from 62.1% to 89.2% respectively. Analysis of environmental samples from wastewater plants in Poland as well as biological samples from human organism were conducted and results reported.