Abstract

Background: The metal alkoxides undergo the sol-gel process leads to highly dense polymer networks in nano range size particles. Template-mediated nanomaterial fabrication involves functional monomers, cross binders, catalysis, and other favorable thermal conditions optimized to prepare thermal, mechanical, and chemo-stable tailor-made complimentary recognition sites ceramic materials.

Methods: The present study is focused on imprinting of caffeine by sol-gel method, wherein functional monomer as (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES), crosslinker as tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), and ammonium hydroxide solution as catalyst were considered to prepare materials, and those materials characterized. The catalyzed hydrolysis and condensation were carried with a wide range of composition mixtures in acetonitrile optimized at 60 °C. The imprinted polymers (MIPs) and Non-Imprinted Polymers (NIPs) characterized by FTIR, GC-MS, SEM, and EDS techniques. Further post-polymerization studies were carried to investigate recognizing capacity specificity and the binding capacity of the caffeine and its structurally similar analogs with imprinted / non-imprinted polymers.

Results: The studies revealed that efficiency in the template removal was high in the imprinted polymers in which low concentration of crosslinker and whereas the selectivity of the template was observed to be high compared with polymers with higher concentrations.

Conclusion: In conclusion, high binding affinity was observed in imprinted polymers to that of non- Imprinted polymers.

Keywords: Sol-gel method, functional monomers, crosslinkers, imprinted / non-imprinted polymers, selectivity, recognizing capacity, NIPs.

Graphical Abstract