Molecular Imprinting of Carboxylic Acids Employing Novel Functional Macroporous Polymers

Imprinted network polymers incorporating basic functional groups were developed to assess the binding and specificity of carboxylic acids. The binding affinities were determined using t-BOC-phenylalanine and 2-phenylbutyric acid as templates and substrates. Chiral selectivity for the enantiomers of t-BOC-phenylalanine was found for polymers incorporating adenine or 2-aminopyridine functionality. Chiral selectivity in the case of (R)-(-)-2-phenylbutyric acid was found for the polymer utilizing N-(2-aminoethyl) methacrylamide as the functional monomer. Optimization of binding was achieved by changing polymerization conditions (thermal versus photochemical polymerization, monomer:template ratio) for t-BOC-phenylalanine imprinted polymers employing the N-(2-aminopyridine) methacrylamide monomer.