title: Molecularly imprinted porous beads for the selective removal of copper ions.
abstract: In the present work, novel molecularly imprinted polymer porous beads for the selective separation of copper ions have been synthesized by combining two material-structuring techniques, namely, molecular imprinting and oil-in-water-in-oil emulsion polymerization. This method produces monodisperse spherical beads with an average diameter of ∼2-3 mm, in contrast to adsorbents produced in the traditional way of grinding and sieving. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy indicates that the beads are porous in nature with interconnected pores of about 25-50 μm. Brunner-Emmett-Teller analysis shows that the ion-imprinted beads possess a high surface area (8.05 m(2) /g), and the total pore volume is determined to be 0.00823 cm(3) /g. As a result of the highly porous nature and ion-imprinting, the beads exhibit a superior adsorption capacity (84 mg/g) towards copper than the non-imprinted material (22 mg/g). Furthermore, selectivity studies indicate that imprinted beads show splendid recognizing ability, that is, nearly fourfold greater selective binding for Cu(2+) in comparison to the other bivalent ions such as Mn(2+) , Ni(2+) , Co(2+) , and Ca(2+) . The imprinted composite beads prepared in this study possess uniform porous morphology and may open up new possibilities for the selective removal of copper ions from waste water/contaminated matrices.
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: M Rizwan
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Younis
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Sadia Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Bajwa
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Lieberzeit
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Waheed S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Chemistry, University of The Punjab, Quaid-i-Azam Campus, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Adnan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mujahid
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Ayesha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ihsan
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Asma
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rehman
keywords: Copper; Emulsion polymerization; Molecular imprinting; Porous polymer composites; Selective adsorption