Submicron nanoporous polyacrylamide beads with tunable size for verapamil imprinting

Submicron sized polyacrylamide particles were prepared via modified precipitation polymerization method. Experimental design based on Taguchi approach was employed to study the influence of the polymerization composition including monomer (acrylamide), crosslinker (methylenebisacrylamide), initiator (azobisisobutyronitrile), and modifier (polyvinylpyrrolidone, K-30), on the size and morphology of the particles. Varying the polymerization composition, submicron-particles with sizes ranging between 100 and 600 nm were achieved. In all the cases, polydispersity index (PDI) of the particle size was found to be almost 1 indicating uniformity of the particle size. The concentration of crosslinker was found to be the most influential parameter on the particles size and the modifier concentration as an extra tunable parameter was believed to affect the nucleation mechanism and the viscosity of the medium to help controlling the particle size. To validate the optimization, particles with a preset diameter, i.e., 500 nm, were synthesized based on the composition predicted by the mathematical correlation. The polymer with the preset particle size was also imprinted with verapamil and characterized by FTIR, DSC, SEM, physisorption, elemental analysis, swelling, and batch rebinding experiments. The verapamil imprinted polymers bearing nano-cavities exhibited high affinity with imprinting factor 2.17 towards the target molecule. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012