Imprinted applications

The synthesis of custom-made monomers to suit specialized molecular imprinting applications, exemplified here in the last row with, e.g., a fluorescent reporter monomer is discussed in Chapter 7 (see also Chapter 17 for a scintillation reporting monomer). 

The development of highly selective chemical sensors for complex matrixes of medical, environmental, and industrial interest has been the object of greate research efforts in the last years. Recently, the use of artificial materials - molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) - with high recognition properties has been proposed for designing biomimetic sensors, but only a few sensor applications of MIPs based on electrosynythesized conductive polymers (MIEPs) have been reported [1-3]. 

Possible applications of MIP membranes are in the field of sensor systems and separation technology. With respect to MIP membrane-based sensors, selective ligand binding to the membrane or selective permeation through the membrane can be used for the generation of a specific signal. Practical chiral separation by MIP membranes still faces reproducibility problems in the preparation methods, as well as mass transfer limitations inside the membrane. To overcome mass transfer limitations, MIP nanoparticles embedded in liquid membranes could be an alternative approach to develop chiral membrane separation by molecular imprinting [44]. 

In spite of the fact that molecular imprinting allows materials to be prepared with high affinity and selectivity for a given target molecule, a number of limitations of the materials prevent their use in real applications. The main limitations are ... 

Apart from the successful imprinting discussed above, the recognition for many templates is far from that is required for the particular application, even after careful optimization of the other factors affecting the molecular recognition properties. Often, a large excess of MAA in the synthesis step is required for recognition to be observed and then only in solvents of low to medium polarity and hydrogen bond... 

Alternative approaches to imprint peptides via strong monomer template association have recently been reported, although no results of the chromatographic application of these phases have been shown. Strong complexation inducing a (3-sheet conformation was possible using a designed functional monomer (21) [71]. Peptides... 

A number of studies have recently been devoted to membrane applications [8, 100-102], Yoshikawa and co-workers developed an imprinting technique by casting membranes from a mixture of a Merrifield resin containing a grafted tetrapeptide and of linear co-polymers of acrylonitrile and styrene in the presence of amino acid derivatives as templates [103], The membranes were cast from a tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution and the template, usually N-protected d- or 1-tryptophan, removed by washing in more polar nonsolvents for the polymer (Fig. 6-17). Membrane applications using free amino acids revealed that only the imprinted membranes showed detectable permeation. Enantioselective electrodialysis with a maximum selectivity factor of ca. 7 could be reached, although this factor depended inversely on the flux rate [7]. Also, the transport mechanism in imprinted membranes is still poorly understood. 

In summary, the present limitations in saturation capacities and selectivity of imprinted polymers preclude their applications in the above-mentioned preparative separation formats. 

Ye, L Ramstrom, O Mansson, MO Mosbach, K, A New Application of Molecularly Imprinted Materials, Journal of Molecular Recognition 11, 75, 1998. 

The current trend in analytical chemistry applied to evaluate food quality and safety leans toward user-friendly miniaturized instruments and laboratory-on-a-chip applications. The techniques applied to direct screening of colorants in a food matrix include chemical microscopy, a spatial representation of chemical information from complex aggregates inside tissue matrices, biosensor-based screening, and molec-ularly imprinted polymer-based methods that serve as chemical alternatives to the use of immunosensors. 

Yano, K. and Karube, I., Molecularly imprinted polymers for biosensor applications. Trends Anal. Chem., 18, 199, 1999. 

A CD-ROM is attached containing a teaching course of Mossbauer spectroscopy (ca. 300 ppt frames), a selection of examples of applications of Mossbauer spectroscopy in various fields (ca. 500 ppt frames), review articles on computation and interpretation of Mossbauer parameters using modem quantum-mechanical methods, list of properties of isotopes relevant to Mossbauer spectroscopy, appendices refering to book chapters, and the first edition of this book which appeared in 1978. In subsequent printmns files are available via springer.extra.com (see imprint page). 

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