The
design of artificial oxyanion receptors with switchable ion
preference is a challenging goal in host–guest chemistry. We
here report on molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) with an external
phospho-sulpho switch driven by small molecule modifiers. The polymers
were prepared by hydrogen bond-mediated imprinting of the mono- or
dianions of phenyl phosphonic acid (PPA), phenyl sulfonic acid (PSA),
and benzoic acid (BA) using
N
-3,5-bis-(trifluoromethyl)-phenyl-
Ń
-4-vinylphenyl urea (
1
) as the functional
host monomer. The interaction mode between the functional monomer
and the monoanions was elucidated by
1
H NMR titrations
and
1
H–
1
H NMR NOESY supported by molecular
dynamic simulation, which confirmed the presence of high-order complexes.
PPA imprinted polymers bound PPA with an equilibrium constant
K
eq
= 1.8 × 10
5
M
–1
in acetonitrile (0.1% 1,2,2,6,6-pentamethylpiperidine) and inorganic
HPO
4
2–
and SO
4
2–
with
K
eq
= 2.9 × 10
3
M
–1
and 4.5 × 10
3
M
–1
, respectively, in aqueous buffer. Moreover, the chromatographic
retentivity of phosphonate versus sulfonate was shown to be completely
switched on this polymer when changing from a basic to an acidic modifier.
Mechanistic insights into this system were obtained from kinetic investigations
and DSC-, MALDI-TOF-MS-,
1
H NMR-studies of linear polymers
prepared in the presence of template. The results suggest the formation
of template induced 1–1 diad repeats in the polymer main chain
shedding unique light on the relative contributions of configurational
and conformational imprinting.