Effects of zinc ion on the selectivity and template removal of molecularly imprinted polymers for sulfadiazine

One molecule of zinc ion (Zn2+) could combine with two molecules of sulfadiazine (SDZ) to form a complex. Based on this concept, two experiments were performed to improve the preparation of sulfadiazine molecularly imprinted polymer materials (MIPs). One experiment used the complex of SDZ–Zn as template to replace SDZ in order to synthesize MIPs, which displayed higher selectivity and imprint factor. The second experiment used a methanol–acetic acid solution (9 : 1, v/v) containing 0.02 mol L−1 Zn2+ as the eluate to remove the template molecules from the synthesized MIPs, which could rapidly remove the template at 80 °C within two hours. Compared with the traditional Soxhlet extraction, the time was largely shortened.