Applications of molecularly imprinted polymers to the analysis and removal of personal care products: A review

Abstract

Personal-care products (PCPs) involve a variety of chemicals whose persistency along with their constant release into the environment raised concern to their potential impact on wildlife and humans health. Regarded as emergent contaminants, PCPs demonstrated estrogenic activity leading to the need of new methodologies to detect and remove those compounds from the environment.Molecular imprinting starts with a complex between a template molecule and a functional monomer, which is then polymerized in the presence of a cross-linker. After template removal, the polymer will contain specific cavities. Based on a good selectivity towards the template, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) have been investigated as efficient materials for the analysis and extraction of the so called emergent pollutants contaminants.Rather than lowering the limit of detections, the key theoretical advantage of MIP over existing methodologies is the potential to target specific chemicals. This unique feature, sometime named specificity (as synonym to very high selectivity) allows to use cheap, simple and/or rapid quantitative techniques such as fast separation with ultra-violet (UV) detection, sensors or even spectrometric techniques. When a high degree of selectivity is achieved samples extracted with MIPs can be directly analysed without the need of a separation step. However, while some papers clearly demonstrated the specificity of their MIP toward the targeted PCP, such prove is often lacking, especially with real matrices, making it difficult to assess the success of the different approaches.This review paper focusses on the latest development of MIPs for the analysis of personal care products in the environment, with particular emphasis on design, preparation and practical applications of MIPs.3

Tailoring Covalent Organic Frameworks To Capture Water Contaminants

“…[67] Advances in the design and development of highly efficient adsorbentsh ave intensified in the recent years. Different literature reports and critical reviewsa ddress the applicationo fd ifferenta dsorbents for water contaminantc apturei ncluding activatedc arbon, [68] carbon nanomaterials (graphene, fullerenes, nanotubes), [69] zeolites, [70] inorganic materials (e.g.,M oS 2 , [71] CeO 2 ), [72] metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), [73][74][75] molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), [76,77] porous organic polymers (POPs), [78][79][80] andh ybrid membranes. [81] Activated carbon is one of the most reported commercially availablem aterials for removing pollutantsf rom water, [68,69] since it is inexpensive and features large surfacearea.…”

Advances in organic–inorganic hybrid sorbents for the extraction of organic and inorganic pollutants in different types of food and environmental samples

“…MIPs are becoming a trend in analytical field and act as a good alternative sorbents in SPE . Molecularly imprinted nanomagnetic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes sorbent was synthesized by He et al.…”

Molecularly imprinting: a tool of modern chemistry for analysis and monitoring of phenolic environmental estrogens

“…Based on the non-covalent interaction in the synthesis of the PEEs-MIPs, the main considerations in the selection of template are the stability, the ability to establish hydrogen bonding, and the absence of polymerizable groups Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/28/16 3:36 AM to avoid reaction with the newly free radicals (Figueiredo et al 2016). In most cases the template is the target molecule that is to be selectively retained by the MIPs, and most of the PEEs-MIPs were synthesized using the same molecule as target and template.…”