A novel chiral stationary phase was synthesized via the combination of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and click chemistry. In the synthesis, the silane coupling agent 3-(2-bromoisobutyryl)- propyl triethoxysilane (BPE) was chosen as the ATRP initiator and immobized on the porous silica gel. The polymer chains of poly(2-methyl-3-butyn-2-ol methacrylate) (pMBMA) were grafted on the silica substrates by surface-initiated ATRP. This “grafting-from” technique was used to synthesize polymers with controllable molecular weight and narrow molecular weight distributions. For immobilizing the chiral selector, azide-modified β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) was synthesized and bounded on the pMBMA by click chemistry, which can avoid the side-reactions in the preparation. The materials with different pMBMA chain density and length on the silica gel surface were prepared. Several pharmaceuticals were used to evaluate the enantioseparation ability of the materials under reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography. The results demonstrate that ATRP can well design the polymer structure, and click chemistry can provide an effective route in the β-CD immobilization for chiral discrimination. It was found that the retention and separation factors of chiral compounds could be improved by adjusting the pMBMA chain density and length on the surface of silica gel.

Key words: chiral stationary phase, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), β-cyclodextrin (β-CD), click chemistry