Molecularly imprinted polymers with p-acetaminophenol and its positional isomers as templates

In this study, molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP) with p-acetamino-phenol (p-AMP) and its positional isomers as templates were synthesized. Several structural analogues, phenol, acetanilide (AN), p-nitrophenol (p-NP) and p-aminophenol (p-AP) were chosen to study the selectivity of the MIPs in different mobile phases. In addition, the separation of the positional isomers was also investigated. The experimental results showed that, in the mobile phase with less polarity, the retention of the compounds was increased greatly on both blank polymer and the MIPs, thus leading no enhancement in the imprinting effect and selectivity. In addition, the use of dichloromethane/acetonitrile as the mobile phase favors the separation of the positional isomers, and baseline separation can be achieved only on the column based on the polymer imprinted with m-acetaminophenol (m-AMP) as a template.