Screening approach for chiral separation of pharmaceuticals part II. Reversed-phase liquid chromatography

A screening strategy for the rapid separation of drug enantiomers by reversed-phase liquid chromatography was developed using three cellulose/amylose stationary phases. The key point to achieve enantioselectivity is the control of the compound ionisation. Only two mobile phases, i.e. an acidic phosphate buffer (pH 2.0) containing a chaotropic salt (KPF6) and a borate buffer (pH 9.0) mixed with acetonitrile, are used in the proposed strategy. This strategy was successfully applied to a set of 37 diverse chiral pharmaceuticals. Satisfactory enantioselectivity was achieved for 89% of them.