SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF A PERIODIC MESOPOROUS ORGANOSILICA MOLECULAR IMPRINTED POLYMER FOR REMOVAL OF DDT

Abstract

A Periodic Mesoporous Organosilica (PMO) is an org anic-inorganic hybrid composition with ordered porous structure on a molecular imprin ted polymer (MIP). A triblock copolymer Pluronic F127 poly(ethylene glycol)poly(propylene glycol)poly(ethylene glycol) as structure directing agent (SDA) and 1,4-bis(triethoxysilyl)benzene (BTEB) as a precursor were used to synthesis the PMO-MIP using a non-covalent approach. The non-covalent app ro chshowed a limited number of selective imprinted sites due to the lack of strong intermole cu ar attractions between DDT template and the BTEB precursor. However, treatment of PMO-MIP with c lorotrimethylsilane (CTMS) significantly reduced the SiO-H and Si-OH resulting in a more non -p lar material. The synthesized PMO-MIP was able to recover 106%, 85% and 99% of DDT, DDD and D DE respectively which shows that it can be used not only for extraction of DDT and its metabol ites from environmental samples but also as a clean-up for samples.