Preparation, Characterization, Equilibrium and Kinetics Studies of A Molecularly Imprinted Polymer for Selective Recognition of Dicamba from Aqueous Samples

The aim of current study is to investigate the use of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for recognition, determination and adsorption of dicamba from aqueous samples in batch mode. Hence, the spherical MIP nanoparticles were successfully synthesized via precipitation polymerization using dicamba as a template. The synthesized polymers were then characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, scanning electron microscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis. Kinetic and equilibrium isotherm studies were performed using non-linear regression analysis. Finally, the selectivity of the imprinted polymer was evaluated by comparing the binding with structural analogs. The results showed that the MIP nanospheres were obtained with the average diameter of 234 nm and the specific surface area of 165.4 m(2) g(-1). Sips isotherm best fitted the adsorption equilibrium data, and the kinetics followed a pseudo-first-order model. In addition, the results demonstrated that the prepared imprinted polymer exhibited specific rebinding ability to its template compared with other structural analogs.