ABSTRACT This study reports a novel imprinted molecular poly(ethylene terephatalate) (MIPBB41) for the binding and selective recognition of an azoic dye (basic blue 41) by a non-covalent imprinting approach. Basic blue 41 (BB41) was chosen as the template molecule, acrylic acid-grafted poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET- g -AA) and N,N’- methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA) were used as the functional polymer and crosslinking reagent respectively. To determine the binding capacity of MIPBB41, several adsorption studies were performed. The adsorption isotherm was described by the Langmuir model, and the maximum adsorption capacity of MIPBB41 toward basic blue 41 reached 144.8 mg g−1 in water at pH 6.2. The fabricated MIP showed good recognition properties. In a further experiment, the adsorption capacity of the MIP was compared to the non-imprinted polymer (NMIP), and a recognition coefficient of 3.14 was obtained.