Special selectivity of molecularly imprinted monolithic stationary phase

A monolithic, molecularly imprinted column was prepared by an in situ therm-initiated copolymerization process; the essential conditions of forming a non-covalent molecular imprinting stationary phase are discussed and illustrated with caffeine and theophylline as examples from the angle of molecular construction, and examined by experiments. The results showed that the theophylline-imprinted monolithic column has high selectivity to theophylline; baseline separation of caffeine and theophylline was achieved. However, only weak specific selectivity to the template molecule was observed for the caffeine imprinted monolithic column.