Influence of Continuous Magnetic Field on the Performance of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers

A set of polymers was imprinted with (-)-ephedrine using UV initiation, under the influence of a constant external magnetic with intensities ranging from 0 to 1.55T. It was shown that polymer morphology and recognition properties are affected by the magnetic field leading to considerable improvements in the performance of newly synthesised materials. Apparently the magnetic field improved the ordering of the polymer structure and facilitated the formation of more uniform imprinting sites. Introduction The effect of magnetic field (MF) on the physical and chemical properties of polymers has been under intense investigation (Chiriac and Simionescu, 2000; Chiriac et al., 2000). Polymers synthesised in the presence of a magnetic field often exhibit different properties and polymerisation kinetics when compared to polymers synthesised by traditional procedures (Chiriac et al., 2000). Even weak MF influences chemical kinetics and changes the activation energy and entropy for a chemical