Preparation And Performance Of Molecular Imprinted Polymers For Rhodamine-B And Rhodamine-6G

In this article, molecular imprinting polymers (MIPs) for RhodamineB and Rhodamine6G have been prepared by inverse micro-emulsion polymerization approach and precipitation polymerization approach.A library of common functional monomers was built and then Molecular Dynamics software was used to compute the interaction energy between functional monomers and RhodamineB or Rhodamine6G, with acetonitrile as solvent. Five selected functional monomers were added to the RhodamineB and Rhodamine6G solution in acetonitrile. UV was test to acquire the chemical shift in order to validate the computational results. MIPs for RhodamineB and Rhodamine6G were prepared as beads with the selected functional monomers via inverse micro-emulsion polymerization approach and removal efficiency of template molecules was determine by HPLC. The results agreed well with computational results. Acrylamine (83% for RhodamineB and 79% for Rhodamine6G) was the best functional monomers while acrylic acid (29.4% for RhodamineB and 26.8% for RHodamine6G) was the worst one in the monomers.MIPs beads for RhodamineB and Rhodamine6G were prepared via precipitation polymerization approach. The beads have been characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) studies with evidence of Rhodamine-B linkage in polymer particles and by atomic force microscope (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to study their morphological properties. The SEM images show spherical particles with the mean diameter.The proper adsorption and selective recognition ability of the MIP were studied by an equilibrium adsorption method. The MIP showed outstanding affinity towards Rhodamine-B and Rhodamine6G in aqueous solution and the maximal removal efficiency were 83% for RhodamineB and 79% for Rhodamine6G. The optimum pH value for binding has been found around neutral range and the optimum temperature was around 40℃. In addition, the variation in the adsorption ability of the MIP that was repeatedly used was investigated, and it showed excellent reproducibility. The results suggested that the MIP is a very promising new material for the removal of priority pollutants from contaminated water.