Molecular recognition of sulfaquinoxaline and sulfapyridine with molecularly imprinted polymer

Abstract

The selective separation of sulfapyridine (SPD) from sulfaquinoxaline (SQX) is investigated by applying high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) as the stationary phase. Herein we report the synthesis of a molecularly imprinting polymer, SPD-MIP, by free radical polymerization process. Because of this powerful method synthetic polymers with specific binding sites to template molecule are provided. In addition, the separation performances were represented by using buffer/acetonitrile (3/2, v/v) as mobile phase under 272 nm UV detection. In order to compare the chromatographic data from the stationary phase, capacity factor (k') and separation factors (α) were given. The value of 2.71 (α) revealed that the MIP was able to recognize structurally subtle differences from the template molecule. Our results are discussed with regard to the amount of template, the composition of the chromatographic mobile phase and adsorption capacity.