Grant: Idea to Innovation

Developing receptor materials and microparticles capable of capturing specific targets such as lithium ions, antibiotic molecules, and bacteria has numerous applications across industries, including medical diagnostics, drug delivery, environmental monitoring, and mining. Synthetic recognition elements, particularly imprinted polymers (IPs), have gained increasing attention as receptors that selectively recognize and bind target analytes based on their shape and chemistry. Notably, imprinted polymer microparticles (IPMs) have been developed by us for molecules (MIPs) like azithromycin (AZM), cells (CIPs) like E. coli, and ions (IIPs) like lithium (Li), showcasing their versatility in analyte recognition, capturing, detection, and release. The main gap is producing IPMs that are monodispersed, size-controlled at the micron scale, and have affinity to not one, but multiple targets, for multiplex extraction and detection. Our goal is to optimize and prototype our existing IP-coated microparticles and standalone IPMs with affinities to various targets like AZM, Li, and Salmonella, then test them with end-users for their selective capturing and releasing of targets in extraction, purification, enrichment, and detection applications. The following objectives will be pursued: Objective 1 (O1): Optimize the synthesis of coated IPMs to enhance selective capturing and releasing of AZM, Li, and Salmonella in aqueous solutions with different pH levels. Objective 2 (O2): Optimize the synthesis of standalone IPMs for extracting multiple targets from the same fluids as O1, expanding analytes of interest to multiple antibiotics, ions, and bacteria and/or a combination of them. Objective 3 (O3): Co-develop and test prototypes of the coated and standalone IPMs with industrial and government partners to validate and deploy the technology. This project will train one PDF and one PhD student and lead to decisions regarding IPMs commercialization.