A Better Understanding of How Polymer Composition Affects Sensing Performance of Molecularly Imprinted Photonic Polymer

Molecularly imprinted photonic polymer is an ideal sensory material due to high specificity and selectivity. Polymer composition plays a vital role in determining its sensing performance. For better understanding the effects of polymer composition, herein we reported the interactive effects of polymer composition on sensing performance by using Response surface methodology. We fabricated L-tryptophan molecularly imprinted photonic polymer by using maleic anhydride modified by β-cyclodextrin (MAH-β-CD) and acrylamide as dual functional monomers, N,N’-methylene bisacrylamide as cross-linker. A second-order polynomial model was proposed for describing the relationship between polymer composition and its sensing performance. This model reveled that MAH-β-CD and cross-linker were dominant in determining the sensing performance of demonstrated molecularly imprinted photonic polymer, and proved the existence of interactive effects of polymer composition on sensing performance, which have been ignored before and need to be considered in the future study of molecularly imprinted photonic polymer. It is anticipated that this work would provide an important guidance for rational design of molecularly imprinted photonic polymer.