Studies of the Molecular Recognition Abilities of Gallic Acid-Imprinted Polymer Prepared Using a Molecular Imprinting Technique

The present work compares the molecular recognition abilities of two molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) synthesized using two different functional monomers, viz. acrylamide (AA) and 4-vinylpyridine (4-Vp), employing gallic acid (GA) as the template using the non-covalent imprinting approach employing ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as the cross-linker and 2,2-azo-bis-2-isobutyronitrile (AIBN) as an initiator in the porogen acetonitrile by thermal polymerization. The change in the electronic stabilization energies (ΔE) of the template–monomer complexes formed between the template and functional monomers in the presence of the porogen were computed using Density Functional Theory (DFT) to interpret the nature of the interactions between them and to compare their stabilities. A systematic investigation of the molecular recognition abilities of the synthesized MIPs has been carried out by applying the Langmuir–Freundlich (L–F) adsorption isotherm model. The binding parameters obtained from the L–F model demonstrate that MIP AA exhibited a higher specific molecular recognition ability towards the template molecule.