Application of Hansen solubility parameters in fabrication of molecularly imprinted polymers for detection of PAHs from water samples

Jafari, Maryam (2018) Application of Hansen solubility parameters in fabrication of molecularly imprinted polymers for detection of PAHs from water samples. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) are smart polymers for selective recognition of target analytes. This work focuses on developing MIPs for aquatic contaminants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in seawater. MIPs are generally prepared with a monomer, cross-linker, template or pseudo-template, and solvent (porogen). As with most porous adsorbents, MIPs exhibit high surface area and porosity, controlled pore size and mechanical stability. It has been recognized that the solvent system plays a key role in the pore generation, influencing the shape, size and volume of pores in MIPs. Rather than taking a trial-and-error approach, Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs) are used in this work to develop a model to predict the suitability of porogen for the formation of MIP films with specified porosity. Hansen solubility parameters help to predict the ther-modynamic compatibility of a porogen with the prepolymerization components, which is a good estimate of the propensity to form a polymeric network with required characteris-tics. MIPs fabricated using the systematic method based on Hansen solubility parameters were combined with GC-MS to determine the concentration of naphthalene, fluorene, phenan-threne and pyrene in water samples. The porous MIPs were also used to extract and de-termine the concentration of PAHs in produced water which is a byproduct generated along with the production of oil and gas from on shore and offshore platforms. This is the first report of a predictive model for porogen selection in the preparation of porous MIP monoliths.

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