Saccharide modified silica particles by enzymatic grafting

The surface of silica particles has been chemically modified with oligo- or poly-(α,1→4)-D-glucopyranose (amylose) chains of various length by covalently attaching maltoheptaose derivatives to the solid support and enzymatic polymerization of glucose-1-phosphate with a potato phosphorylase as catalyst. The characterization of the products by solid-state NMR spectroscopy showed an interesting dependence of the linewidth with the grafting density of the glucan chains. The modified silica particles showed chiral discrimination in liquid chromatography.