Synthesis, characterization and analytical application of nano structured Sm(III)-ion imprinted polymer for purification of 152Sm

Samarium as a rare element has been interested in last decades due to their wide applications in different fields such as nuclear industry (as neutron absorber), chemistry (as a chemical reagent in organic synthesis and as a target for production of radiopharmacy [1-3]. This work presents the synthesis of samarium nano-structured ion imprinted polymer as the sorbent for separation and chemical purification of 152Sm enriched stable isotope. The samarium-152 is used as a target in producing of 153Sm (as a radiopharmacy). The unleached Sm3+-IIP nanoparticles prepared by the copolymerization of Sm3+ - acrylic acid- 4-vinyl pyridine ternary complex with methyl methacrylate as functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as a crosslinker in presence of 2, 2-azobisisobutyronitrile as an initiator, then Sm3+ ions were leached to obtain Sm3+-IIP nanoparticles. Moreover, non-imprinted polymer (NIP) particles were similarly prepared without Sm3+ ions. The effect of several parameters such as solution s pH, sorption and desorption time, type, concentration and volume of eluent on the extraction of the polymers were investigated and optimized by one variable at the time. Optimized parameters were, pH 4; mass sorbent 0.1 g; sorption time, 120 min; desorption time 120 min; aqueous phase volume, 10 mL. Moreover, it is found that 30 mL of HCl (3 M) provided the most effective elution of Sm3+ ion from IIP imprinted beads. The maximum sorbent capacity of the IIPs is 14.91 mg g−1. The detection and determination limits of the method were evaluated to be 0.27 and 2.7 ng mL-1 respectively. The Precision of the method (%RSD, n=6) was % 0.47. The samarium-152 recovery yield was % 99.67.