One-step synthesis of mussel-inspired molecularly imprinted magnetic polymer as stationary phase for chip-based open tubular capillary electrochromatography enantioseparation.

A facile approach for preparation of molecularly imprinted polymers was developed and successfully used as chiral stationary phase for rapid enantioseparation by open tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC). In this work, molecularly imprinted polymers were one-step prepared employing Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs) as the supporting substrate and dopamine as the functional monomer. By simply mixing Fe3O4 NPs with template molecules in a weak alkaline solution of dopamine, a thin adherent polydopamine (PDA) film imprinted with template molecules was formed by the self-polymerization of dopamine on the surface of Fe3O4 NPs. After extracting the embedded template molecules, the produced imprinted Fe3O4@PDA NPs are of three dimensional shape of template molecules favoring high binding capacity and magnetism property for easy manipulation. The imprinted Fe3O4@PDA NPs prepared with l-tryptophan, l-tyrosine, Gly-l-Phe or s-ofloxacin as template molecules were packed in the PDMS microchannel via magnetic field as novel stationary phase for the successful enantioseparation of corresponding target analysts. In addition, the imprinted Fe3O4@PDA NPs-based OT-CEC system exhibited excellent reproducibility, stability and repeatability, which provides a powerful protocol for separation enantiomers within a short analytical time and opens up a promising avenue for high-throughput screening of chiral compounds.