MOLECULARLY IMPRINTED POLY(3,4-ETHYLENEDIOXYTHIOPHENE) DERIVATIVES FROM SOLID STATE POLYMERIZATION

Abstract

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) were prepared via solid state polymerization (SSP) of 2,5-dibromo-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene in the presence of template molecules such as p-nitrophenol (PNP), 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP), 2,4,6-trinitrophenol (TNP) or pyrene. The conjugated MIPs exhibited the distinctive recognition of all of the externally added nitrophenol templates compared to the non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) prepared in parallel in the rebinding experiments, monitored by UV-Vis absorption. In contrast, the similarly prepared MIP using pyrene as the template showed only small difference in rebinding the nonpolar pyrene in comparison to its NIP. Similarly, molecularly imprinted copolymers (coMIPs) based on PEDOT and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene methanol) (PEDTM) were prepared using PNP as the template molecule. The resulted conjugated coMIPs with higher percentage of PEDTM showed much better recognition of externally added PNP molecules compared to the non-imprinted copolymers (coNIPs) and MIP without PEDTM. The same trend was also observed with the calculated rebinding capacities of the co-MIPs. These results indicated that the presences of polar functional groups on both template molecule and monomeric units of the MIP contribute significantly on the induced imprinting property. These accomplishments suggest a strong possibility to develop the family of PEDOT derivatives as highly specific MIP-based sensors.