Synthesis and evaluation of molecularly imprinted polymers with binary functional monomers for the selective removal of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid and perfluorooctanoic acid

This work describes a novel method for the synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) using 2-(trifluoromethyl) acrylic acid (TFMAA) and 4-vinyl pyridine (4-Vpy) as binary functional monomers, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) as template, and ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as cross-linker in the presence of azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN). The binary functional monomer MIPs were applied to selective recognition for PFOA and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) from aqueous environment. The MIPs were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and microscopic electrophoresis. Thereafter, the adsorption capacity and selectivity of the synthesized MIPs for PFOA and PFOS were evaluated by batch adsorption experiments. The maximum adsorption capacities of the MIPs for PFOA and PFOS were 6.42 and 6.27 mg/g, respectively. It was also found that the adsorption capacities remained constant with increasing the solution pH in the range of 2.0-5.0, and then decreased when the pH was further increased. Finally, the novel MIPs can be reused after five cycles of adsorption-desorption-adsorption with no significant decrease of removal rate and have an effective performance in selective removal of PFOA and PFOS in real lake water samples. All the results indicate that the binary functional monomer MIPs have great potential to remove PFOA and PFOS in aqueous environment.