Chiral Separations Using a Modified Water Stationary Phase in Supercritical fluid Chromatography

Abstract

A novel means of achieving chiral separations in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) using a water stationary phase is presented. By adding various chiral selectors to the phase, different chiral analytes can be readily separated using neat CO2 as a mobile phase. For example, by adding β-cyclodextrin, it is found that certain flavanone enantiomers can be separated, while using the antibiotic vancomycin as a selector provides separation of some chiral phenoxypropionic acids. Other additives such as sodium chloride and triethylamine are also explored and found to enhance certain separations when also present in the water phase. While column pressure has a moderate impact on chiral analyte retention and separation in this SFC method, column temperature has a comparatively larger influence. In particular, relatively cooler temperatures below about 5 °C are found to markedly increase resolution and selectivity. For instance, notably large resolution of 4.7 is achieved for a phenoxypropionic acid pair at 0 °C and 150 atm CO2. Since the method does not require modifier to elute such polar species, it is also readily compatible with FID detection and does not generate organic waste. Therefore, results indicate that this approach could be a potentially simple and flexible means of achieving chiral separations in SFC.