This study focus on the effect of the porogenic solvent on the morphology, recognition, and drug release of carbamazepine-molecularly imprinted polymer nanospheres prepared by precipitation polymerization. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis showed that molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) prepared by acetonitrile exhibited a regular spherical shape at the nanoscale with a high degree of monodispersity, specific surface area of 242 m(2) g(-1), and pore volume of 1 mL g(-1), while those using chloroform and toluene produced irregular polymer particles with low specific surface area and pore volume. MIP prepared by acetonitrile/chloroform (1 : 1, v/v) showed mediator texture properties compared to MIPs obtained by acetonitrile or chloroform. Results from saturation and displacement assays indicated that the imprinted nanospheres with binding capacity of 2.85 (mg CBZ/g polymer) had high specific affinity to CBZ in contrast to nonimprinted nanospheres (1.63 mg CBZ/g polymer). The imprinted nanospheres with 2.4 selectivity factor had good recognition to CBZ than analog template of oxcarbazepine. Moreover, release studies showed that 20% of loaded CBZ was released from the imprinted nanospheres within the initial 6 h, while another 80% of CBZ was released in the following 9 days. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 121: 1118-1126, 2011