Selective Adsorption and Steric Recognition by Molecularly Imprinted Polymers: a Study on Molecular Self-Assembly and its Effect on Selectivity

This article presents an interesting study on molecular self-assembly and its effect on steric recognition by molecularly imprinted polymers. With S-naproxen as the template and acrylamide as the functional monomer, the self-assembly appears to play important roles in the selective adsorption, affecting not only the adsorption amount but also the enantioselective recognition. Both of them become evident by the change of monomer–template ratio. An increase in the monomer–template ratio will result in a higher level of adsorption. The best selectivity for steric recognition is, however, shown at an optimal composition (corresponding to the saturation interaction of monomer and template). A higher or lower monomer–template ratio leads to a dramatic decrease in this selectivity. Related information indicates that this may be a result from the matched arrangement between the binding sites and the template, which makes the binding sites capable of selectively recognizing the imprint species.