| Abstract: | Supercritical fluid chromatography was applied to evaluate the direct chiral discriminative properties of Chiralcel OJ, a tris(4-methylbenzoate) cellulose column towards frequently administered drugs. Two groups of acidic drugs, profen and barbiturate derivatives, and a few basic drugs of the benzodiazepine type were analysed. The effect on enantioselectivity of carbon dioxide when using methanol are acetonitrile as primary modifier was studied. Acetonitrile proved to be a good alternative for methanol, especially for the profen compounds that were not well resolved using methanol. The results were compared to normal phase chromatographic applications on the same column. SFC was not necessarily superior to high-performance liquid chromatography. Chirality 9:126–132, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc. |
