Preparation of molecularly imprinted resin based on chitosan for chiral recognition of S-mandelic acid.

An enantioselective S-mandelic acid (S-MA) imprinted chitosan (SMIC) was prepared by cross-linking of chitosan using formaldehyde cross-linker, in the presence of S-MA as an imprint template molecule and 0.5% acetic acid solution as a solvent. Non-imprinted cross-linked chitosan (NIC) as control was also prepared by the same procedure in absence of template molecules. The surface morphology of both SMIC and NIC were examined by scanning electron microscope (SEM). SMIC particles were applied to determine the optimum operational condition for S-MA separation from dilute aqueous solution. In adsorption step, optimum pH and retention time were 3.5 and 60 min, while corresponding values in extraction step were 1 and 40 min, respectively. Also, the adsorption isotherms indicated that the maximum adsorption capacities of S- and R-MA on SMIC were 100 ± 0.5 and 64 ± 0.8 mg/g, respectively, while in the case of NIC, both R- and S-MA present the same maximum adsorption.