The nearly exponential growth in the molecular imprinting literature has to a large extent been fuelled by an increasing awareness of the potential of molecular imprinting based technologies. Despite the acceptance of the technique by cognate disciplines and the demonstration of its usefulness in a number of enabling technologies, relatively little is known about the molecular level events underlying the imprinting process and subsequent recognition events. What rules govern imprint formation? Can we use such rules to rationally design molecularly imprinted polymers?

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) selective for Tröger’s base were designed and synthesised, and HPLC-chromatographic evaluation of polymer recognition characteristics was undertaken. Baseline separation of racemic Tröger’s base was readily achieved, and enantioseparation factors (α) of up to 4.8±0.2 were obtained. The high enantioselectivity demonstrated by these materials prompted their use to examine the kinetics and thermodynamics of individual enantiomers in a solid-phase extraction (SPE) process. Enantiomer-dependent differences in the rates and extent of adsorption were observed. Furthermore, the enantiomeric enrichment of racemates was demonstrated in batch studies.