Abstract: Styrene widely exists in the environment. There is no toxicity when a small amount is inhaled by humans. Long-term exposure to the heaviest styrene may lead to the diseases of respiratory system. Therefore, detection of mandelic acid can provide an important basis for monitoring environmental styrene content. In addition, mandelic acid is also a vital intermediate of chiral drugs and its optical purity directly affects the quality of downstream products. Therefore, it is necessary to develop rapid, accurate, sensitive, simple, good separation methods to detect drug enantiomers. By these methods, it can obtain the quality control data. In this review, several detection methods provide valuable references for accurate and simple detection of mandelic acid enantiomers.