Synthesis of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers for Selective Extraction Followed by Solid Phase Determination of Metformin in Pharmaceutical Preparation and in Human Serum

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that the synthesising and storage of molecular-imprinted polymers (MIP) at room temperature using bulk polymerisation of Metformin (Met) is characterised by high sensitivity, reduced costs, increased stability, and extended life. The research used 0.8:4:20 mmol ratios of template, monomer and cross-linking agents for the polymerisation in order to ensure an appropriate adsorption capacity. Benzoyl peroxide BPO was employed as the initiator for the functional monomer styrene C₈H₈ , cross-linked with Ethylene glycol dimethacrylate EGDMA C₁₀H₁₄O₄, thereby creating MIP for Metformin(Met-MIP) that could be characterised with UV-Visible Spectrophotometry at 236nm, for pharmaceutical drugs and human serum. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used for MIP drug. The elution process that was applied to the template (Met.) from the Met-MIP created cavities that were caused by the porogenic mixture solvents that were created from methanol, chloroform and acetic acid (70:20:10) mL respectively. The maximum adsorption capacity was 1.2320, 2.4448 µmol/g for two studies using 0.1 and 0.2 g weights of Met-MIP respectively. A solid-phase extraction (SPE) syringe packed with molecular imprinted polymers (MIPs) was employed to selectively separate and pre-concentrate the Metformin in multiple pharmaceutical drugs from several sources. The human serum was based on the use of deionized water to dilute the serum, followed by the heating of the serum with methanol. Subsequently, a few drops hydrochloric acid 1M were applied to gate transparence solution and detect Metformin at UV region 236 nm by applying the standard addition method.