Separation of ephedrine stereoisomers by molecularly imprinted polymers—influence of synthetic conditions and mobile phase compositions on the chromatographic performance

Abstract

Separation of ephedrine stereoisomers by molecularly imprinted polymers was performed to study the factors that affect the selectivity and column efficiency. The polymer synthesized with pentaerythritol triacrylate as the cross-linker and chloroform as the porogen was found to have the best overall separation performance. Investigation of the recognition mechanism by NMR and chromatographic analysis revealed that the major binding forces between the polymer stationary phase and ephedrine are the ionic and hydrogen bonding interactions. Studies of the influence of mobile phase compositions on the HPLC analysis have shown that a methanol–aqueous buffer was the suitable mobile phase for the separation in which pH, ionic strength and water content can be adjusted to optimize the chromatographic analysis.