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CAFFEINE SPECIFICITY OF VARIOUS NON-IMPRINTED POLYMERS IN AQUEOUS MEDIA
Citation:
Villamena, F. A. AND A A. de la Cruz. CAFFEINE SPECIFICITY OF VARIOUS NON-IMPRINTED POLYMERS IN AQUEOUS MEDIA. Presented at American Chemical Society Meeting, New Orleans, LA, August 22-26, 1999.
Impact/Purpose:
Develop rapid, practical and sensitive biosensor, immunoassay, chemiluminescence and HPLC methods to detect caffeine, urobilin, and coprostanol, using them as non-microbial indicators of human fecal contamination in water.
Description:
Limitations exist in applying the conventional microbial methods to the detection of human fecal contamination in water. Certain organic compounds such as caffeine, have been reported by the U.S. Geological Survey as a more suitable tracer. The employment of caffeine has been hampered by the absence of a rapid, sensitive, and inexpensive method to detect its presence in water. This may be rectified by the application of molecularly imprinted polymers. These polymers are used in molecular recognition, separation and sensor technology to detect specific molecules. Most studies involving molecular imprinting employ organic solvents which would limit its use for environmental monitoring of water quality. This paper focuses on the synthesis, characterization and binding studies of several caffeine-specific polymers in aqueous media. The polymer binding was optimized by varying the polymerization conditions such as the solvent, nature of initiation and type of cross-linker and functional monomer. One unexpected result was finding that some non-imprinted polymers exhibited comparable or greater binding capacity and selectivity for caffeine than the caffeine-imprinted polymers. The possible role of p-p interaction between the polymer and caffeine is discussed.