Effects of Polymerization Methods and Functional Monomers on Curcumin Imprinted Polymer Properties

Curcumin molecularly imprinted polymers (cur-MIP) were synthesized by three different polymerization methods including bulk, suspension, and precipitation polymerization resulting in irregular-shaped granules, microspherical, and nanospherical beads, respectively. Synthesized polymers are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and attenuated total reflectance FT-IR analysis. The binding capabilities of the imprinted polymers are assessed by equilibrium binding analysis. Two curcumin analogues were employed to study the binding selectivity. Results showed that the highest specific sorption capacity could be achieved by precipitation polymerization where the methacrylic acid-based and acrylamide-based cur-MIP provided specific sorption capacity of 89.3 and 37.4 nmol/g, respectively. For the selectivity testing, cur-MIP prepared by precipitation polymerization using methacrylic acid exhibited the highest selectivity towards curcumin. These results indicate that the precipitation polymerization using methacrylic acid as a functional monomer is suitable for synthesis of cur-MIP which can serve as a promising tool for curcumin extraction.