2-Acetyldimedone

We report a chiral high-performance liquid chromatographic enantioseparation method for free α-aminophosphonic, β-aminophosphonic, and γ-aminophosphonic acids, aminohydroxyphosphonic acids, and aromatic aminophosphinic acids with different substitution patterns. Enantioseparation of these synthons was achieved by means of high-performance liquid chromatography on CHIRALPAK ZWIX(+) and ZWIX(-) (cinchona-based chiral zwitterionic ion exchangers) under polar organic chromatographic elution conditions. Mobile phase characteristics such as acid-to-base ratio, type of counterion, and solvent composition were systematically varied in order to investigate their effect on the separation performance and to achieve optimal separation conditions for the set of analytes. Under the optimized conditions, 32 of 37 racemic aminophosphonic acids studied reached baseline separation when we employed a single generic mass-spectrometry-compatible mobile phase, with reversal of the elution order when we used (+) and (-) versions of the chiral stationary phase.

Novel chiral stationary phases (CSPs) based on zwitterionic Cinchona alkaloid-type low-molecular mass chiral selectors (SOs), as they have been reported recently, were investigated in HPLC towards effects on their chromatographic behavior by mobile phase composition. Mobile phase characteristics like acid-to-base ratio and type of acidic and basic additives as well as effect of type of bulk solvents in nonaqueous polar organic and aqueous reversed-phase (RP) eluent systems were varied in order to illustrate the variability and applicability of zwitterionic CSPs with regard to mobile phase aspects. Chiral SOs of the five zwitterionic CSPs investigated herein contained weak and strong cation-exchange (WCX, SCX) sites at C9- and C6'-positions of the Cinchona alkaloid scaffold which itself accommodated the weak anion-exchange (WAX) site. The study focused on zwitterion-exchange (ZX) operational mode and chiral amino acids as target analytes. Besides, also the anion-exchange (AX) mode for chiral N-blocked amino acid analytes was considered, because of the intramolecular counterion (IMCI) property available in AX mode. Overall, most general and successful conditions in ZX mode were found to be weakly acidic methanolic mobile phases. In aqueous eluents RP contributions to retention came into play but only at low organic modifier content because of the highly polar character of zwitterionic analytes. At higher acetonitrile content, HILIC-related retention phenomena were observed. When using weakly basic eluent system in AX mode remarkably fast enantiomer separations involving exclusion phenomena were possible with one enantiomer eluting before and the other after void volume.

The intramolecular distances of anion and cation exchanger sites of zwitterionic chiral stationary phases represent potential tuning sites for enantiomer selectivity. In this contribution, we investigate the influence of alkanesulfonic acid chain length and flexibility on enantiomer separations of chiral acids, bases, and amphoteric molecules for six Cinchona alkaloid-based chiral stationary phases in comparison with structurally related anion and cation exchangers. Employing polar-organic elution conditions, we observed an intramolecular counterion effect for acidic analytes which led to reduced retention times but did not impair enantiomer selectivities. Retention of amphoteric analytes is based on simultaneous double ion pairing of their charged functional groups with the acidic and basic sites of the zwitterionic selectors. A chiral center in the vicinity of the strong cation exchanger site is vital for chiral separations of bases. Sterically demanding side chains are beneficial for separations of free amino acids. Enantioseparations of free (un-derivatized) peptides were particularly successful in stationary phases with straight-chain alkanesulfonic acid sites, pointing to a beneficial influence of more flexible moieties. In addition, we observed pseudo-enantiomeric behavior of quinine and quinidine-derived chiral stationary phases facilitating reversal of elution orders for all analytes.