Chiral separations in polar organic solvent chromatography: updating a screening strategy with new chlorine-containing polysaccharide-based selectors

The screening conditions of an existing column and mobile phase selection strategy for chiral drug substances in polar organic solvent liquid chromatography (POSC) were tested for their applicability on two new chlorine-containing polysaccharide-based stationary phases. The selectors of these phases are cellulose tris(3-chloro-4-methylphenylcarbamate) and amylose tris(5-chloro-2-methylphenylcarbamate). The enantioselectivity of these phases is compared to that of the four phases (Chiralpak AD-RH, Chiralcel OD-RH, Chiralpak AS-RH and Chiralcel OJ-RH) used in the earlier defined strategy. A test set of 62 structurally diverse chiral drug substances is analyzed using the screening conditions of the strategy on the six phases. The results confirm that the acetonitrile-based mobile phase provides a higher success rate and better resolutions than the methanol-based also on the new phases. However, the importance of the methanol-based mobile phase cannot be neglected for complementarity reasons; the two mobile phases insure enantioselectivity for different compounds. A third (ethanol-based) mobile phase, not part of the strategy, was also used to screen the two new phases. The joint results led to different possibilities to upgrade the current screening strategy so that improved success rates are obtained. The chlorine-containing chiral stationary phases demonstrated to have an added value to the screening process since they provided enantioresolution for compounds not resolved by non-chlorine-containing ones.