Preparation of molecularly imprinted polymer for vanillin via seed swelling and suspension polymerization

Molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for vanillin was synthesized successfully by multi-step swelling suspension polymerization using polystyrene (PS) as the “seed”. The PS-MIP was characterized by scanning electron microscopy and equilibrium adsorption method. The results showed that the PS-MIP microsphere had regular spherical morphology and can selectively separate the target analytes. The PS-MIP had two kinds of binding sites, while the non-imprinted polymer using PS as the “seed” (PS-NMIP) only had one kind of binding sites by Scatchard analysis which indicated that specific and non-specific binding interactions existed there. The PS-MIP had proven to show improved binding capacity in comparison with the MIP synthesized by bulk polymerization.