Preparation and Properties of Uniform-Sized Polymer Beads Imprinted with N-CBZ-L-Phenylalanine

ABSTRACT

A series of uniform-sized polymer beads molecularly imprinted for N-carbobenzoxy-L-phenylalanine (N-Cbz-L-Phe) were prepared by a two-step swelling and suspension polymerization method using polystyrene latex particles as precursors, 2-vinypyridine and α-methylacrylamide as host functional monomers and diethylene glycol diacrylate as crosslinker. The uniformly sized polystyrene precursors were synthesized by emulsifier-free emulsion polymerization. The obtained materials had an obvious imprinting effect to the template N-Cbz-L-phenylalanine. The imprinted polymer also had some adsorption to the molecules, which were similar to the template molecule configuration. The adsorbing dynamics of the polymer to the template molecule, and the effects of crosslinking degree of the polymer and the environmental temperature on the absorbing properties were also discussed.

Keywords:

• molecularly imprinted polymer
• uniform-sized polymer beads
• amino acid derivative
• adsorption
• selective separation

Acknowledgments

The authors kindly acknowledge the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Proj. No. 50003006).