Chiral Separations by HPLC Using Molecularly Imprinted Polymers

In the past decade the molecular imprinting technology (MIT) has developed to become a promising approach for the synthesis of artificial receptors (1 ,2 ). The technique is based on a template-assisted polymerization, and the resultant molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) is able to rebind the template molecule with a high selectivity. Two main approaches to prepare MIPs can be recognized, i.e., the covalent imprinting (3 ) and the noncovalent imprinting (4 ). In the covalent MIP the interactions are based on weak covalent bonding, which offers strong interactions, however, the kinetics of this recognition mechanism are slow. Today, the noncovalent approach is by far the most utilized for analytical applications, and therefore, covalent imprinting will not be covered in this chapter.