Development of molecularly imprinted HEMA-based copolymeric systems for glucose recognition

Complete text of publication follows. Molecularly imprinted copolymeric systems can be tailored by using one or more functional monomers with a crosslinker in the presence of a molecule behaving as the template. After polymerization/crosslinking template molecule is removed by solvent extraction thus leaving behind specific recognition sites and moieties in the crosslinked matrix. In this study, 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) was used as functional monomer and diethylene glycol diacrylate (DEGDA) and polyethylene glycol (200) diacrylate (PEG(200)DA) were employed as crosslinking agents to imprint D(+)glucose. Molecular imprinting of D(+)glucose onto HEMA matrix was prepared by radiation induced crosslinking in the presence of dimethyl sulfoxide(DMSO)/isopropyl alcohol(IPA) (3/1,v/v) at room temperature. Control matrices were synthesized through the same procedure in the absence of D(+)glucose. In order to evaluate the recognition and separation properties of imprinted systems, HPLC experiments were performed. For this purpose β(-)lactose, D(+)glucose and glycerol were used as analytes and separation has been shown to be achieved successfully. Furthermore, to determine the size of the cavities in the imprinted polymeric networks the positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) was employed. The radius of cavities for imprinted polymers prepared with PEG(200)DA which were swollen in water and mixture of acetonitrile/water (1/5, by volume) followed by freeze drying, were determined as 0.25 and 0.28 nm, respectively.