The use of metal‐containing monomer in the preparation of molecularly imprinted polymer to increase the adsorption capacity

Abstract

AbstractMolecular imprinting is an elegant approach to induce antibody like recognition ability in synthetic polymers. The technique of molecular imprinting has been used extensively in the preparation of tailor‐made stationary phases in chromatography, sorbents in solid phase extraction, sensor elements, etc. Though several of the reported molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) possess substrate selectivity comparable to antibodies, they are poor in adsorption capacity. The adsorption capacity could be improved presumably through enhanced interaction between the functionalities of the monomers and the print molecule. A simple approach to improve the interaction is perhaps the use of chemically modified monomers in the synthesis of the MIPs. This article explores this possibility by using a metal‐containing monomer in the synthesis of MIP. The data obtained using a copper acrylate based MIP and cholesterol as substrate indicates the adsorption capacity can be improved considerably through the simple chemical modification of the functional monomer. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 80: 2795–2799, 2001