Design and preparation of molecularly imprinted atrazine-receptor polymers: Investigation of functional monomers and solvents

The preparation of atrazine-receptor polymers by molecular imprinting was explored, focusing upon the role of functional monomer and solvent used for the preparation. Three functional monomers and six different solvents were examined from the viewpoint of the efficiency for molecular imprinting. Polymers were prepared using methacrylic acid, a stronger acid 2-(trifluoromethyl)acrylic acid and a three-point hydrogen bond donor/acceptor, glutethimide derivative. Methacrylic acid displayed the best effectiveness as functional monomer, which leads to an understanding that a functional monomer is required to have both strong binding and multiple binding capacity. By choosing less polar solvents for polymerization, polymers having better retention ability and higher selectivity were obtained. Those polymers exhibited capacity factors 2 - 2.5 times as large as that for chloroform. Is was also suggested that the molecular shape and size of the solvent used have influence on the resultant polymer's binding ability.