HIERARCHICAL IMPRINTED POLYMER ARCHITECTURES

The recognition capabilities of molecularly imprinted materials are being successfully exploited in a growing number of application areas. As material morphology can be critical for time-dependent applications such as separation, sensing and catalysis, and even for use in regulating biological function, the incorporation of higher orders of organisation into molecularly imprinted materials is desirable. Accordingly, strategies for the design and synthesis of imprinted materials with both high fidelity imprints and suitable morphologies are required.

We are currently exploring the use of hierarchical imprinted material architectures using a combination of strategies, in particular the use of sacrificial soft scaffolds such as liquid crystalline media in conjunction with molecularly imprinted polymerization reactions [1-4]. Recent progress with these fabrication strategies in the production of nanofibers and ordered mesoporous materials shall be presented, including examples of the application of these materials in quartz crystal microbalance sensing studies, e.g.[4]. Recent work directed at the development of hierarchical materials based upon protein-scaffolds [5] and novel porogens [6] for shall also be presented.

References

1. Suriyanarayanan, L. Peroni, T. Ederth, I.A. Nicholls, Chem Commun.49, 5274 (2013).

2. Suriyanarayanan, J.G. Wiklander, T. Aastrup, I.A. Nicholls, I.A.Biosensors.4, 90 (2014).

3. Elmlund, S. Suriyanarayanan, J.G. Wiklander, T. Aastrup, I.A. Nicholls, J. Nanobiotechnol.12, 8(article no.) (2014).

4. Suriyanarayanan, S. Mandal, K. Ramanujam, IA Nicholls, Sens. Accuat. B. Chem. 253, 428 (2017).

5. Suriyanarayanan, I.A. Nicholls, submitted (2018).

6. Suriyanarayanan, G.D. Olsson, I.A. Nicholls, submitted (2018).