Boronate affinity imprinted organo/hydro copolymers fabricated from Pickering emulsions reactor for specific recognition of Luteolin

Abstract

To date, the flexiable organo/hydro copolymer materials have made of interest for separation, but the utilize of Pickering emulsion from such macroporous monoliths is challenging. A new kind of flexible boronate affinity imprinted organo/hydro copolymer sorbents (UiO-66-NH2@MIPs-FPS) were firstly fabricated via Pickering emulsion interfacial polymerization. This strategy allowed the formation of the organo/hydro imprinted copolymer matrix with multiple hydrogen bonded interactions, which can efficiently adjusting the mechanical property of copolymers supporting matrix. In addition, this method provided the effective boronate affinity imprinted recognizing sites and abundant porous structure based on Pickering emulsion reactor. As the novel solid emulsifier, UiO-66-NH2@MIPs, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) based on UiO-66-NH2 could greatly improves the number of boronic acid recognizing sites and mechanical performance of the copolymer matrix. As excepted, the porous boronate affinity imprinted copolymer sorbents showed fast adsorption kinetics towards LTL, and the adsorption capacity could obtain 23.67 mg g−1. Meanwhile, the UiO-66-NH2@MIPs-FPS exhibited fast adsorption kinetics (60 min), high adsorption amounts (46.66 mg g−1), and excellent regeneration after six reuse cycles (4.92% loss in adsorption amounts) for LTL. The abundant imprinted recognizing sites such as boronic acid played a significant role on adsorption, and the emulsion interface polymerization of copolymer matrix avoided from the leakage of nanosize imprinted sorbents (UiO-66-NH2@MIPs). This work provided a new avenue on the construction of organo/hydro imprinted imprinted copolymer through inserting nanosize imprinted sorbents for selective capture of targeted flavonoid molecules.