Debittering of lemon juice using surface molecularly imprinted polymers and the utilization of limonin

Abstract

In this work, surface molecularly imprinted polymers (SMIPs) were prepared as a specific sorbent to remove the limonin from the lemon juice for the first time, and then the MIPs containing limonin were directly made into a water-soluble gel to treat inflammation of mice. The resulting polymers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer spectra. And the polymerization conditions and adsorption performances of the resultant nanomaterials were further investigated in detail. Results showed that the MIPs have higher adsorption capacity (27.72 mg/g) compared with surface molecularly non-imprinted polymers (NIPs) (8.12 mg/g). The selectivity experiment indicated that the polymers had excellent selective recognition for limonin and the selectivity factors were calculated as 2.75 and 1.83 for nomilin and obakunone, respectively. The MIPs were successfully used as adsorbent for selectively removing limonin from lemon juice and the MIPs extracted almost all the limonin from lemon juice according to the HPLC results. Furthermore, the MIPs with limonin were processed into water-soluble gel, which can be used to reduce the inflammation and enhance wound healing of model mice.

Keywords: Debittering; Imprinted polymers; Limonin; Surface imprinting.