MOLECULAR RECOGNITION IN CONTINUOUS POLYMER RODS PREPARED BY A MOLECULAR IMPRINTING TECHNIQUE

As new separation media, continuous rods of molecularly imprinted polymers were prepared by an in situ method. The preparation procedure was simple and easy to perform: a template compound, a functional monomer which interacts with the template molecules, and a cross-linker were placed in a stainless steel column and heated for polymerization. In this study, diaminonaphthalene and phenylalanine anilide were used as model template molecules. The molecular recognition capabilities of the prepared molecular-imprinted polymer rods were evaluated by separating positional isomers of diaminonaphthalene and resolving enantiomers of phenylalanine anilide. The results showed that the original- template compounds were more strongly retained than their isomers. It is suggested that the templates were successfully imprinted in the prepared polymer rods by the employed in situ method.