In this study, the molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) of capsaicin are prepared by bulk polymerization (MIPs1), precipitation polymerization (MIPs2), and surface imprinting technology based on SiO2/Fe3O4 particles (MIPs3), respectively. MIPs are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The adsorption kinetics and thermodynamics of these composites are also investigated to estimate their capacity to rebind capsaicin. The adsorption kinetics show that the adsorption process of MIPs1 is fitted to pseudo first-order kinetic model, while the kinetic properties of MIPs2 and MIPs3 are well described by pseudo second-order kinetic model. Adsorption thermodynamics analysis indicated that there are two kinds of binding sites with different affinity in each MIPs, whereas only one kind of binding site in non-imprinted polymers. All adsorption isotherms of MIPs are fitted to Freundlich models, illustrated that binding sites are distributed heterogeneously in the surface of the materials, and the adsorption might occur in the multimolecular layers. Comparisons of experimental data of three MIPs are achieved and the results show that MIPs3 has the best affinity and absorption capacity to capsaicin. Moreover, the MIPs3 maintain the magnetic properties of Fe3O4 particles, which will be applied to the rapid separation of capsaicin from chili peppers samples. (c) 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2019, 57, 157-164