Novel chromatographic separation — The potential of smart polymers

‘Smart’ or stimuli-responsive polymers represent new classes of materials that are currently under development. These novel polymeric materials undergo conformational rearrangement in response to small changes in their environment, such as temperature, pH, UV irradiation, ionic strength or electric field. These environmental changes alter the structure of stimuli-responsive polymers and increase or decrease their overall hydrophobicity, resulting in reversible collapse, dehydration or hydrophobic layer formation. With further research into their synthesis, behaviour and application, these novel materials have great potential to become the ‘next generation’ of separation media for cost-effective and environmentally-friendly extraction and purification of high value biomolecules from agri-food and other raw materials.Industrial relevanceThe growing demand for functional food ingredients is requiring the development of selective, cost-effective isolation techniques. Chromatography is one technique employed to produce novel food ingredients. Chromatography procedures often require the use of large quantities of solvents, which must be removed from food products, increasing processing input costs (solvent and energy), and creating an environmental disposal issue. Smart polymers are novel materials that change phase with temperature or other types of operational conditions, and have the potential to offer a cost and environmentally attractive means of producing functional food ingredients. This paper presents a review of smart polymers as novel separation media, and their potential application in the food industry.