| Abstract: | Computational strategies have been employed to investigate the influence of the nature of monomers and cross-linker in order to design three dimensional imprinted polymers with selective recognition sites for L-phenylalanine benzyl ester(L-PABE) molecule.Here, computational chemistry methods were applied to screen the molar quantity of functional monomers that interact with one mole of the template molecule. Effects of the nature of functional monomer, cross-linker, and molar ratio were determined computationally using density functional calculations with B3LYP functional and generic 6-31G basis set. Methacrylic acid(MAA) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate(EGDMA) were used as the functional monomer and crosslinking agent, respectively. L-PABE imprinted polymer layered on multiwalled carbon nanotube(MWCNT) and conventional bulk MIP were synthesised and characterized as well. To investigate the influence of pre-organization of binding sites on the selectivity of L-PABE, respective non-imprinted polymers were also synthesised.MWCNT-MIPs and MIPs exhibited the highest adsorption capacity towards L-PABE. The synthesized polymers revealed characteristic adsorption features and selectivity towards L-PABE in comparison with those of its enantiomer analogues. |
