Preparation and characterization of uniform molecularly imprinted polymer beads for separation of triazine herbicides

Uniform molecularly imprinted polymer beads were synthesized by precipitation polymerization for separation of triazine herbicides. A series of imprinted polymers were prepared using ametryn as template and divinylbenzene as crosslinking monomer, in combination with three different functional monomers under different solvent conditions. Under optimized reaction conditions, we obtained uniform molecularly imprinted polymer microspheres that display favorable molecular binding selectivity for triazine herbicides. The imprinted polymer beads synthesized using methacrylic acid as functional monomer in a mixture of methyl ethyl ketone and heptane showed the best results in terms of particle size distribution and molecular selectivity. Compared with nonimprinted polymer microspheres, the imprinted microspheres displayed significantly higher binding for a group of triazine herbicides including atrazine, simazine, propazine, ametryn, prometryn, and terbutryn. For the first time, precipitation polymerization has been used to produce highly uniform imprinted microspheres suitable for affinity separation of triazine herbicides. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012