Application of crown ethers as stationary phase in the chromatographic methods

Recently, much attention has been paid to chromatographic characteristics and applications of crown ethers. These compounds were employed as chiral stationary phase for resolution of various racemic compounds in high performance chromatography and capillary electrochromatography techniques. Crown ethers also used in gas chromatography as the stationary phase. Recently, it has been found that, crown ethers also may be useful in cation chromatographic separation in ion chromatography for the determination of alkali and alkaline-earth cations, ammonium, and amines. In this paper we have an overview on these applications of crown ethers.