Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Pharmaceutical Compounds: Synthetic Procedures and Analytical Applications

Abstract

In this chapter, the synthetic procedures for molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) for pharmaceutical compounds are discussed. Regardless of its limitations, such as production of irregular particles and loss of sample during processing (crushing and sieving), bulk polymerization has been widely used compared to say precipitation and suspension polymerization partly due to its simplicity in synthesis and robustness. A comparison of indomethacin removal from aqueous solution by MIP particles prepared using bulk polymerization to those obtained from suspension polymerization showed that the particles from the former exhibited higher adsorption capacity. Furthermore, the chapter explores the strengths and limitations relating the use of pharmaceutical compounds as uni-templates, multi-templates and dummy templates. Also, the analytical applications of MIPs are discussed in more details with particular focus on molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) of pharmaceuticals from environmental samples. This application (MISPE) is currently the most exploited in literature as more pharmaceutical drugs find their way into environmental water bodies.