Potential of ion imprinted polymers synthesized by trapping approach for selective solid phase extraction of lanthanides.

Ion imprinted polymers (IIPs) specific to lanthanides were synthesized using neodymium ions (Nd) as template ions. Nd ions form binary complex ions with 5,7-dichloroquinoline-8-ol (DCQ) or vinylpyridine (VP), or ternary complex ions with both DCQ and VP in 2-methoxyethanol, before copolymerization in the presence of styrene and divinylbenzene as monomer and cross-linker, respectively. DCQ was expected to be trapped in the synthesized polymers pores. The template ion removal was then optimized. For the first time, the DCQ leakage was determined by HPLC-UV during the template removal and the sedimentation steps before solid-phase extraction (SPE) packing. It was observed that the trapped DCQ was unfortunately lost in significant amounts, up to 51%, and that this amount varied from one synthesis to another. The grinded and sieved polymers were next packed in SPE cartridges. The study of the SPE profiles obtained with the IIPs synthesized either with the binary or the ternary complex confirmed the prominent role of DCQ on the selectivity of an IIP by comparison with a non-imprinted polymer (NIP), i.e. a polymer synthesized under the same conditions as those of the IIP but without template ions. The influence of the porogenic solvent on the selectivity was also investigated by replacing 2-methoxyethanol by acetonitrile or dimethylsulfoxyde (DMSO). The polymers synthesized in DMSO led to the most repeatable results when elution solutions with a gradual decrease in pH were percolated through the cartridge. This is why DMSO was used to optimize the SPE protocol in order to maximize the difference of extraction yield between the IIP and the NIP, i.e. promoting a selective retention on the IIP. A value of about 30% was obtained for La, Ce, Nd, and Sm. Nevertheless, with the optimized SPE protocol, IIPs from different syntheses did not have the same SPE behavior, which may result from different random leakages of DCQ. This demonstrates for the first time the main limitation of the IIPs synthesized in bulk with the trapping approach for their use in SPE.