Preparation of ionic liquid mediated molecularly imprinted polymer and specific recognition for bisphenol A from aqueous solution

In this paper, an ionic liquid mediated molecularly imprinted polymer (IL-MIP) was prepared, in which synthesis system 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (IL) was introduced to improve its selectivity and adsorption for the target. The structures of the prepared materials were characterized by SEM, BET, 13 CNMR and FTIR, and the adsorption performance of the resultant IL-MIP for BPA and its analogues (phenol, 4-NP, 4-CAP and 1-naphthol) in strong polar media were investigated in detail. The experimental data showed that the adsorption capacities of IL-MIP and molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for Bisphenol A (BPA) were 116.16 mg/g and 87.30 mg/g, with imprinting factor of 3.77 and 2.72, respectively. In addition, several other competitive analogues with different polarities (phenol, 4-NP, 4-CAP and 1-naphthol) were chosen to evaluate the selectivity of IL-MIP and the experimental results demonstrated that the synthesized IL-MIP displayed selectivity toward BPA and against analogue molecules. This work provided a simple and effective method to selectively extract BPA from aqueous medium or strong polar organic solvent.