Submitted to: American Chemistry Society Abstracts
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: June 3, 1996
Publication Date: N/A
Technical Abstract:
Molecular imprinting technology has recently been applied to the analysis of environmentally-important compounds. Molecularly-imprinted polymers (MIPs) are formed by synthesizing polymers in the presence of a "print molecule," which is usually the analyte of interest or a closely related structure. After polymerization, the print molecule is removed resulting in an "imprint" of the molecule. MIPs can be used as specific binding matrices for a variety of analytical applications. The most common application for MIPs has been as solid-phase adsorbents for HPLC. Recently, these MIPs have been employed as specific receptors in competitive ligand binding assays such as the Molecularly-Imprinted Sorbent Assay (MIA). MIPs have been incorporated into membranes for use in sensor applications. Finally, MIPs have been used as solid phase extraction materials in the preparation of complex biological samples for residue analysis. In our laboratory, this latter application resulted in improvements for the determination of atrazine by both reversed-phase HPLC and ELISA. This paper reviews the process of MIP synthesis, the basis for analyte-MIP recognition, and current applications of the technology for residue analysis.
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