The non-covalent approach to molecular imprinting

A rapid and sensitive method for separation of Cu2+ ions from industrial wastewater sample and water samples with methacrylamide-ethylene glycol dimethacrylate: A new synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymer

In this study, new molecularly imprinted polymer particles (MIP) were synthesised to extract Cu²⁺ ions from aqueous solutions using radical polymerisation. MIP was developed using the methacrylamide‐ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) cross linking agent, methacrylamide monomer, and ACV initiator by the radical polymerisation method. A comparison of various cross linking agents in MIP production showed that the best cross linking agents are EGDMA and gallic acid. The template ions were removed by leaching with 0.100 M HCl. The polymer particles were characterised by FTIR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The effect of different parameters such as cross linkers, pH, time, maximum adsorption capacity, and kinetic and isotherm adsorption were investigated. The best conditions were determined (pH = 8.0, t = 10 min, and q_m = 262.53 mg g⁻¹). The adsorption data were best fitted by Freundlich isotherm and pseudo second order kinetic models, as well. Due to its high adsorption capacity and multi‐layer behaviour, this method is an easy, fast and safe way to extract cations. Removal of Cu²⁺ in certified tap water and rain water was demonstrated and the industrial wastewater sample (Charmshahr, Iran) with which the MIP was developed using Methacrylamide‐ Ethylene Glycol Dimethacrylate (EGDMA) was good enough for Cu²⁺ determination in matrices containing components with similar chemical property such as Co²⁺, Zn²⁺, Fe².

Selective electrochemical sensing of human serum albumin by semi-covalent molecular imprinting

We devised and prepared a conducting molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for human serum albumin (HSA) determination using semi-covalent imprinting. The bis(2,2'-bithien-5-yl)methane units constituted the MIP backbone. This MIP was deposited as a thin film on an Au electrode by oxidative potentiodynamic electropolymerization to fabricate an electrochemical chemosensor. The HSA template imprinting, and then its releasing from the MIP was confirmed by the differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), XPS, and PM-IRRAS measurements as well as by AFM imaging. Semi-covalent imprinting provided a very well defined locations of recognition sites in the MIP molecular cavities. These sites populated the imprinted cavities or the MIP surface only. The DPV and EIS response of the MIP film coated electrode to the HSA analyte was linear in the range of 0.8 to 20 and 4 to 80 µg/mL HSA, respectively, with the limit of detection of 16.6 and 800 ng/mL, respectively. The impressively high imprinting factor reached, exceeding 20, strongly confirmed that semi-covalent imprinting resulted in formation of a large number of very well defined molecular cavities with high affinity to the HSA molecules. The MIP selectivity against low-(molecular weight) interferences, common for physiological fluids, such as blood and urea, was very high. There was no response to the presence of these interferences at concentrations encountered in the samples analyzed. Moreover, the chemosensor selectivity to the myoglobin and cytochrome c interferences was excellent while that to lysozyme was slightly lower but still high. The chemosensor was useful for determination of abnormal HSA concentration in a control blood serum.

Molecular imprinting in particle-stabilized emulsions: enlarging template size from small molecules to proteins and cells

Molecular imprinting of small organic compounds is now a standard procedure for preparation of tailor-designed affinity materials. Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have outstanding stability and can be prepared in a large quantity, therefore are useful replacements for biological receptors for a number of applications including product purification, analytical separation, chemical sensing and controlled delivery and biomineralization. Although preparation of MIPs, in particular using the non-covalent imprinting strategy, has become a routine practice in many research laboratories, new synthetic methods continued to be invented, which contribute to new MIPs with unprecedented functional performances. As the size of the template increases from small organic compounds to biomacromolecules to large virus particles and cells, the traditional methods of imprinting often fail to give useful MIP products. Another important aspect is the shift from organic solvents to water for MIPs designed for treatment or analysis of biological samples. The demand on water-compatibility and recognition of larger entities for MIPs call for new and efficient synthetic methods. This mini review will summarize the recent progress of molecular imprinting using particle-stabilized emulsion as a general synthetic platform to furnish the new MIPs with the desired functions.

Molecular imprinting science and technology: a survey of the literature for the years up to and including 2003

Over 1450 references to original papers, reviews and monographs have herein been collected to document the development of molecular imprinting science and technology from the serendipitous discovery of Polyakov in 1931 to recent attempts to implement and understand the principles underlying the technique and its use in a range of application areas. In the presentation of the assembled references, a section presenting reviews and monographs covering the area is followed by papers dealing with fundamental aspects of molecular imprinting and the development of novel polymer formats. Thereafter, literature describing attempts to apply these polymeric materials to a range of application areas is presented.

Approaches to molecular imprinting based selectivity in capillary electrochromatography

The work done during the past decade in order to adapt molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) to the capillary format and subsequently use these highly selective matrices for capillary electrochromatography (CEC) are reviewed in this article. MIPs are prepared utilizing a templated polymer synthesis where the template addresses the selectivity of the resulting polymer. These polymers possess binding characteristics that are comparable to the biological antibodies. Due to the polyclonality of the binding sites in the MIP, the separation result in severe peak broadening and tailing when performed in the isocratic mode. This was seen early in the development of MIPs as selective stationary phases in liquid chromatography (LC). As a mean of decreasing these problems, much effort was put into adapting the MIP to fit in CEC systems, that offers an efficiency that is superior to that in LC. Aiming to increase the efficiency of the MIP-CEC systems, different MIP formats have been developed that can be divided into three conceptually different categories, i.e., the monolithic, the microparticle and the coating. The strive for MIP formats that can be used in small bore capillaries has led to the development of MIP formats applicable to miniaturized systems approaching the chip format. Although prepared in order to perform MIP-CEC mediated separations, these formats can be used in a broad range of applications were the characteristics of the MIP, e.g. stability, selectivity and cost efficiency, could offer an interesting solution to cover the needs.