Today, many drugs still contain racemic mixtures that have two types of isomers in the product. Generally, only one form of isomer gives a beneficial effect, while other isomer forms can provide side effects. Therefore, the need for pure chiral compounds is increasingly important not only for the pharmaceutical industry but also for various other industrial sectors. Several chemical methods have been widely studied. However, accurately separating small amounts of amino acid enantiomers is tricky because of similar molecular sizes, shapes, and charges. In the present study, the selective membrane-based molecularly imprinted polymers have been prepared by the surface grafting reaction. Molecularly imprinted membranes (MIMs) have received significant attention for separation biomolecules, and selective detection on electrochemical sensor because their specific 3D cavities are complementary in size and shape. MIMs were synthesized through three major stages: pre-activation, silanization, and surface imprinting polymers with L-phenylalanine as a template, methacrylic acid-β-cyclodextrin (MAA-β-CD) as a monomer, and N,N-methylenebisacrylamide (MBA) as cross-linker. The chiral separation performance was carried out by flow electrodialysis system using ionic transfer devices (ITD) under optimum conditions. Previously, ITD was successfully applied for separation and isolation of matrix removal, cation, and anion. As a result, the system could constantly and quantitively transfer target analyte with a single-pass process, and it has the potential to apply for separation other biomolecules. In this result, electrodialysis of D,L-Phenylalanine using L-Phe-MIMs membrane in ITD system showed that the membrane has good ability for recognizing chiral separation with the selectivity ratio (L/D) at 2.95 achieved. Moreover, the synthesized membrane could improve the transfer efficiency of specific chiral compounds by almost 90% with high stability performance.

Preparation of molecularly imprinted membrane for electrodialysis separation of chiral amino acids

ACS Spring 2022

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