Selective removal of 2,4-dichlorophenol in aqueous solutions by nanoparticles modified yeast using miniemulsion imprinting polymerization

This research reports a surface molecularly imprinted polymers (SMIPs) which is synthesized by miniemulsion polymerization based on yeast as substrate material. Then, the obtained SMIPs were characterized by several techniques including Fourier transmission infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and elemental analysis. The results demonstrated that the obtained elliptical-shaped molecular imprinting polymer was coated with thickness imprinting layer. Then, SMIPs were used as sorbents to selective removal of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP) from aqueous solutions. Batch mode of binding experiments was carried out to determine the equilibrium isotherm, kinetics, regeneration and selectivity recognition of SMIPs. The results indicated that the selective adsorption behaviors of SMIPs were well described by the Langmuir isotherm model and the pseudo-second-order kinetics model. The SMIPs exhibited outstanding specific recognition capacity for 2,4-DCP (29.25 mg g−1 at 298 K). SMIPs also possessed excellent selective recognition for 2,4-DCP in the presence of other competitive compounds (such as 2,4,6-TCP, 3-CP and 2,6-DCP). Finally, the SMIPs were successfully adopted to the selective adsorption of 2,4-DCP from the environmental samples.