A Facile Approach for Fabrication of Core-Shell Magnetic Molecularly Imprinted Nanospheres towards Hypericin

By taking advantage of the self-polymerization of dopamine on the surface of magnetic nanospheres in weak alkaline Tris-HCl buffer solution, a facile approach was established to fabricate core-shell magnetic molecularly imprinted nanospheres towards hypericin (Fe3O4@PDA/Hyp NSs), via a surface molecular imprinting technique. The Fe3O4@PDA/Hyp NSs were characterized by FTIR, TEM, DLS, and BET methods, respectively. The reaction conditions for adsorption capacity and selectivity towards hypericin were optimized, and the Fe3O4@PDA/Hyp NSs synthesized under the optimized conditions showed a high adsorption capacity (Q= 18.28 mg/g) towards hypericin. The selectivity factors of Fe3O4@PDA/Hyp NSs were about 1.92 and 3.55 towards protohypericin and emodin, respectively. In addition, the approach established in this work showed good reproducibility for fabrication of Fe3O4@PDA/Hyp.Keywords:surface molecular imprinting;hypericin;magnetic nanospheres;dopamine;core-shell