Molecular recognition characteristics of Cu complex imprinted polymer

With the goal of improving the affinity and specificity in molecularly impr inted polymers, metal complexing polymer matrices capable of specific recog nition and binding to metal - coordinating substrates have been prepared by molecular imprinting technology. The synthesis of these materials involves preorganization of 4 - vinylpyridine as monomer, with copper - 2,2' - dipy ridyl as template, and subsequent polymerization with a large excess of eth ylene glycol dimethacrylate as the cross - linking agent. The characteristi cs of its substrate binding selectivities and specificities to the template was investigated in details. Scatchard analysis demonstrated that two kind s of binding site were formed in the imprinted polymers. Their dissociation constants were estimated to be 30 mu mol/L and 0.45 mmol/L, respectively. Factors that influenced rebinding of the imprinted polymer including the co ncentration of copper (II) acetate, the kind of cation and anion, were expl ored. The results show that the selective recognition of copper - 2, 2' - d ipyridyl by the polymer was distinctly enhanced at the optimum concentratio n of copper (II) acetate, as compared with the control polymer with the sam e chemical composition. Finally, the substrate selectivity of imprinted pol ymer and non-imprinted polymer was investigated.