PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF TNT IMPRINTED POLYMER MICROSPHERES

Trinitrotoluene (TNT) molecularly imprinted polymer microspheres were prepared by precipitation polymerization with TNT as template and ethylene glycol dimethylacrylate (EDMA) as crosslinker. The influences of reaction conditions, including the amount of solvent and template and the category of the functional monomer on morphology and adsorption properties of molecularly imprinted microspheres were studied. The interactions of the binding sites were determined by UV-Visible absorption spectrum, and the structure of the cavities in the microspheres was studied by BET method. The adsorption and recognition ability of the molecularly imprinted polymer microspheres were detected by equilibrium adsorption experiments and selective adsorption experiments. The result revealed that the molecularly imprinted polymer with acrylamide as functional monomer had the shape of regular microspheres with molecularly imprinted cavities inside, and the diameters of the microspheres were about 1 mu m to 2 mu m. The molecularly imprinted microspheres showed fast adsorption speed, high adsorption capacity and good recognition property. The adsorption equilibrium can be reached within 30 min, the equilibrium adsorption amount in 1 mmol/L TNT solution was 32.5 mmol/kg, and the partition coefficient of the microspheres adsorbing TNT was 25.19.