Preparation and properties of phenol imprinted polymers based on silica modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes

A novel molecular imprinted polymers (MIP) based on SiO₂-modified multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs@SiO₂) was successfully synthesized by combining a surface molecular imprinting technique with a sol-gel method using phenol as a template molecule, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane as functional monomer and tetraethoxysilicane as a cross-linker in ethanol solution. Scanning electron microcopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize and analysis the structure and morphology of the molecular imprinting composite, and then studied the isotherm adsorption experiments, selective experiments and dynamic curve. The isotherm adsorption data were further processed with a Scatchard equation to evaluate the adsorption properties of the MWNTs@SiO₂-MIP. The results showed that imprinted polymeric layer was successfully grafted to the surface of MWNTs, the imprinted material had a binding site for the template and apparent maximum amount Q_max = 19.902 mg/g, the maximum imprint factor (α) for the template was 3.484 and the maximum selectivity factor (β) up to 3.440, so the imprinted materials could be applied to the separation of trace phenol.