Solvent‐free synthesis of chiral molecularly imprinted polymers: Porosity control using a nano‐sized solid porogen

Abstract

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have been synthesized in the absence of a solvent using fumed silica nanoparticles to create a porous network. The method employed led to a chiral imprinting effect and allowed for an excellent control over the internal morphology of imprinted and non-imprinted polymer (NIP) materials. The polymers possess high surface areas (>300 m 2 ) and identical pore size (112 Å ). The MIP exhibited an imprinting factor (IF) of 9 and a selectivity value (a) of 1.83 for (2)-ephedrine.

Molecularly imprinted polymers synthesized via template immobilization on fumed silica nanoparticles for the enrichment of phosphopeptides

“…In that case, the silica nanoparticles used in both MIP and NIP were also identical, because the template had not been immobilized on the silica surface. 25 In this work, small differences can be observed between the MIP pore size and respective NIP pore size. This can be expected due to the immobilized template on the silica used as porogen for the MIP synthesis, while template-free silica nanoparticles were used as porogen for the NIP synthesis.…”

“…25 In this method, the synthesis of MIPs is performed in the absence of a solvent using dispersed fumed silica nanoparticles in a templating approach to create the internal porosity of the polymer. The use of a solid porogen provides advantages such as the possibility to immobilize the template on the surface of the silica particles which promotes the localization of the imprinted sites to the surface of the polymer.…”

Surface molecularly imprinted polymer microspheres based on nano‐TiO2 for selective recognition of kaempferol

“…Compared with traditional MIPs, polymers synthesized by “seed precipitation polymerization” have many advantages, for example, high affinity and selectivity, more accessible sites, and more homogeneity and uniformity . Many types of inorganic materials can be used as support matrixes for the surface molecular imprinting technique, such as SiO 2 , silica gel, α‐Al 2 O 3 , TiO 2 , carbon nanotubes, CdS, and ZnS quantum dots, and the advantage of nanomaterials in MIP synthesis has been reported . Among nanomaterials, nano‐TiO 2 as a new inorganic material has attracted lots of attention, and it has many excellent properties, such as nontoxicity, low cost, photostability, chemical stability, a highly efficient photocatalytic effect, and ready availability .…”