Molecular imprinting in alcohols: utility of a pre-polymer based strategy for synthesizing stereoselective artificial receptor polymers in hydrophilic media

Molecular imprinting using a linear pre-polymer bearing carboxylic and 4-vinylbenzyl residues was performed in alcohols for synthesizing stereoselective polymer receptors. Chromatographic assessment of the imprinted polymers, which are obtained by cross-linking the pre-polymer in the presence of a model template (-)-cinchonidine, showed the induction of affinity and selectivity to the template species by the imprinting procedure. Comparison with the performance of an imprinted polymer prepared with a monomer mixture instead of the pre-polymer elucidated the efficacy of the linear pre-polymer for molecular imprinting in the protic solvents. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.