Effects of different organic additives on kaempferol molecularly imprinted membrane properties

By combining the advantages of the molecular imprinting technique and the membrane separation technique, molecularly imprinted membranes (MIMs) were studied to separate special target molecule—kaempferol, an important active pharmaceutical ingredient. The kaempferol MIMs were prepared by the liquid–solid phase inversion method. The effects of organic additives (normal propyl alcohol, PEG-400, PEG-1000 and PVP-K30) on gelation kinetics and kaempferol MIM properties were studied. Results showed that normal propyl alcohol and PEG-400 could generate micropores and accelerate the gelation speed, so the membranes had high rejection and low water flux. Different with both of them, when PEG-1000 or PVP-K30 were used, the membranes had the great water flux, and their gelation speed were slower than the above two. Normal propyl alcohol and PEG-1000 were picked to make MIMs and tested the influence to kaempferol MIM properties. It was shown that MIM which added PEG-1000 had the maximum adsorption equilibrium compared with which added normal propyl alcohol, blank-additive MIM and non-MIM for its high water flux, it was 549.7 μg/g, but high water flux could reduce its separation factor, the separation factor of MIMs which added PEG-1000 and normal propyl alcohol were 3.90 and 4.17, respectively.