Preparing molecularly imprinted membranes by phase inversion to separate kaempferol

Abstract

Molecularly imprinted membranes (MIMs) were studied to separate special target molecule – kaempferol, an important active pharmaceutical ingredient. The kaempferol MIM were prepared by the liquid–solid phase inversion method. The effects of polyphenylene sulfone, LiCl, and ZnCl2 on membrane performance were studied, a high Flux MIM was prepared, then the kaempferol molecularly imprinted polymer membrane, non‐molecularly imprinted membrane, and non‐molecularly imprinted polymer membrane were prepared to investigate adsorption capacity. From adsorption isotherm curve, the maximum equilibrium adsorption quantity was 890 µg/g, and it was MIM. The MIM and molecularly imprinted polymer membrane give high selectivity towards kaempferol; the non‐molecularly imprinted membrane and non‐molecularly imprinted polymer membrane showed low adsorption quantity and selectivity. The reuse experiment of the MIM indicated that it has good reuse property. All the results showed binding sites were important in the separation process of MIMs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.