3D-Printable Polymer Filters for the Selective Complexation of Silver Ions

This study presents the fabrication of polymeric filters, which are able to selectively bind silver ions from aqueous solution. Those filters are fabricated within an easy approach via 3D-digital light processing (DLP)-printing enabling a tailor-made design. In first order, an acrylamide containing a benzo-trithiacrown-ether (BTCE) functionality is synthesized. This monomer is further 3D-printed via layer by layer photo-polymerization together with commercially available comonomers, resulting in polymer networks containing the BTCE-groups in their side chains as selective binding moiety for silver ions. Within isothermal-titration calorimetry (ITC) measurements, the complexation abilities of the BTCE to bind the Ag+ ions are determined. Furthermore, the resulting 3D-printed filters are investigated regarding their complexation behavior, in a detailed fashion applying inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES).