Upgraded protocol for the silanisation of the solid-phase for the synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymers

The introduction of solid-phase imprinting has had a significant impact in the molecularimprinting field, mainly due to its advantage of orienting the template immobilisation, affinityseparation of nanoMIPs and faster production time. To date, more than 600 documents on GoogleScholar   involve   solid-phase   synthesis,   mostly   relying   on   silanes   mediating   templateimmobilisation on solid-phase. Organosilanes are the most explored functionalisation compoundsdue to their straightforward use and ability to promote the binding of organic molecules toinorganic substrates. However, they also suffer from well-known issues, such as lack of control inthe layer’s deposition and poor stability in water. Since the first introduction of solid-phaseimprinting, little efforts have been made to overcome these limitations. The work presented in thisresearch focuses on optimising the silane stability on  glass beads (GB) and iron oxidenanoparticles (IO-NPs), to subsequently function as solid-phases for imprinting. The performanceof three different aminosilanes were investigated; N-(6-aminohexyl) aminomethyltriethoxy silane(AHAMTES),   3-Aminopropyltriethoxysilane   (APTES),   and   N-(2-aminoethyl)-3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (AEAPTES), as well as studying the effect of dipodal silanebis(triethoxysilyl)ethane (BTSE). A stable solid-phase was consequently achieved with 3 % v/vAEAPTES and 2.4 % BTSE, providing an upgraded protocol from Canfarotta  et   al.  for thesilanisation of solid-phase for molecular imprinting purposes.