Preparation of magnetic imprinted polymer particles via microwave heating initiated polymerization for selective enrichment of 2-amino-4-nitrophenol from aqueous solution

Microwave heating initiated suspension polymerization was developed to prepare 2-amino-4-nitrophenol (4-NAP) magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (mag-MIPs) with magnetic wollastonite composites as support, resulting in much shorter polymerization time and better particle morphology. Mag-MIPs were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). Static adsorptive experiment was applied to investigate the adsorption property and selectivity of the mag-MIPs. The results of the equilibrium rebinding experiments and the selective adsorption experiments showed that these imprinted polymers, not only display excellent affinity and selective ability to the 4-NAP, but also exhibited good superparamagnetic to an external magnetic field. Applied as a sorbent, the imprinted sorbent was used for the determination of 4-NAP in a mixture solution by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

► The generation of Fe3O4 was carried out by a polyol-medium solvothermal method.
► Mag-MIPs was synthetized using magnetic wollastonite composites as support.
► Microwave heating initiated polymerization was developed to prepare mag-MIPs.
► Mag-MIPs were characterized by SEM, FT-IR, TEM, EDS, TGA and VSM.
► HPLC-UV was used for determining the selectivity and enrich property of mag-MIPs.