Isocyanate-chitin modified microspheres for chiral drug separation in high performance liquid chromatography

In this work, a two-step activated swelling technique was effectively employed to successfully synthesize monodisperse porous poly(styrene-divinylbenzene) (PS-DVB) particles. Diazoresin (DR) transform an ionic bond into a covalent bond by photoreaction. Under ultraviolet irradiation, DR was used to covalently attach dichlorophenyl isocyanate to sulfonated PS-DVB microspheres. The novel photo-crosslinking reaction effectively overcomes the toxicity issues associated with conventional coupling agents and enables green production of chromatographic fillers. Modified PS-DVB particles were indeed commonly used as filler material for the separation of chiral compounds by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The porous modified microspheres designed effectively separate benzoone, DL-mandelic acid, 2-phenylcyclohexanone, ibuprofen, 2-hydroxyl flavone, DL-cysteine, chloraniline maleate, hesperidin, and other chiral compounds by 100 mm column. It is noteworthy that the isocyanate-chitin modified microspheres are effective in separating chiral drugs (1000 μg/mL) within 5 min. Compared with ordinary microspheres, porous isocyanate-chitin modified microspheres showed better separation efficiency under the same conditions. The enhancement is attributed to the increase in their specific surface area. Consequently, they are a better choice of chromatographic packing matrix.