Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Distortion of
the binding
points
Adequate
removal
Incomplete
removal
Collapse of
the cavity
after removal
Rupture of
the cavity
during
removal
Figure 12.3
Diagrammatic representation of the changes induced in the MIPs during the
removal of the template (Reproduced with permission from [9]).
1. Distortion of binding sites due to extreme treatment of poly-
mer with washing solvent.
2. Collapse of binding site due to removal of template from
polymer matrix.
3. Rupture of cavity during removal, i.e., some part of polymer
may get dissolved due to solvent used for washing.
12.1.4
How to Overcome the Problems
To overcome these problems, recently, nanotechnologies and sur-
face chemistry have been introduced into molecular imprinting strat-
egy. Nanostructured, imprinted materials have a small dimension with
extremely high surface-to-volume ratio, so that most of the template
molecules are situated at the surface and in the proximity of the materials
surface (Figure 12.4). Figure 12.4 illustrates the distribution of ef ective
binding sites in the imprinted bulky materials and imprinted nanoparticles
(NPs) at er the extraction of templates is done [10].
We assume that these templates located within x-nanometers from
the surface can be removed in the bulky materials with a scale of d,
