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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]