Analyte enantiomeric

Figure 3. Analytical enantiomeric separation of methyloxirane on EU-CAM3 by complexa-tion GC (center). Racemic sample spiked with (Rj-enantiomer (left) and with (S)-enantiomer (right). Experimental conditions cf. text. (R -methyloxirane elutes after 9 min (Golding et al., 1977).

Chiral additives, however, do pose some unique problems. Many chiral agents are expensive or are not commercially available, and therefore, must be synthesized. The presence of the chiral additive in the bulk Hquid phase may also interfere with detection or recovery of the analytes. Finally, the presence of enantiomeric impurity in the chiral additive may add analytical complications (10). 

Integration of the peaks for the two diastereomers accurately quantifies the relative amounts of each enantiomer within the mixture. Such diastereometic derivatives may also be analy2ed by more accurate methods such as gc or hplc. One drawback to diastereometic detivatization is that it requites at least 15 mg of material, which is likely to be material painstakingly synthesized, isolated, and purified. The use of analytical chiral chromatographic methods allows for the direct quantification of enantiomeric purity, is highly accurate to above 99.8% ee, and requites less than one milligram of material. 

A study was conducted to measure the concentration of D-fenfluramine HCl (desired product) and L-fenfluramine HCl (enantiomeric impurity) in the final pharmaceutical product, in the possible presence of its isomeric variants (57). Sensitivity, stabiUty, and specificity were enhanced by derivatizing the analyte with 3,5-dinitrophenylisocyanate using a Pirkle chiral recognition approach. Analysis of the caUbration curve data and quaUty assurance samples showed an overall assay precision of 1.78 and 2.52%, for D-fenfluramine HCl and L-fenfluramine, with an overall intra-assay precision of 4.75 and 3.67%, respectively. The minimum quantitation limit was 50 ng/mL, having a minimum signal-to-noise ratio of 10, with relative standard deviations of 2.39 and 3.62% for D-fenfluramine and L-fenfluramine. 

Acylation of various oxygen functions by use of common and commercially available fluonnated carboxylic acid denvatives such as trifluoroacetic anhydride or the corresponding acyl halides have already been discussed sufficiently in the first edition [10] Therefore only exceptional observations will be described in this section In the past 15 years, many denvatizations of various nonfluonnated oxygen compounds by fluoroacylation were made for analytical purposes. Thus Mosher s acid chlorides for example became ready-to-use reagents for the determination of the enantiomeric purity of alcohols and amines by NMR or gas-liquid chromatographic (GLC) techniques [//] (equation 1)... 

In any form of analysis it is important to determine the integrity of the system and confirm that artefacts are not produced as a by-product of the analytical procedure. This is particularly important in enantiomeric analysis, where problems such as the degradation of lactone and furanon species in transfer lines has been reported (40). As chromatography unions, injectors, splitters, etc. become more stable and greater degrees of deactivation are possible, problems of this kind will hopefully be reduced. Some species, however, such as methyl butenol generated from natural emissions, still remain a problem, undergoing dehydration to yield isoprene on some GC columns. 

GC using chiral columns coated with derivatized cyclodextrin is the analytical technique most frequently employed for the determination of the enantiomeric ratio of volatile compounds. Food products, as well as flavours and fragrances, are usually very complex matrices, so direct GC analysis of the enantiomeric ratio of certain components is usually difficult. Often, the components of interest are present in trace amounts and problems of peak overlap may occur. The literature reports many examples of the use of multidimensional gas chromatography with a combination of a non-chiral pre-column and a chiral analytical column for this type of analysis. 

Authenticity evaluation has recently received increased attention in a number of industries. The complex mixtures involved often require very high resolution analyses and, in the case of determining the authenticity of natural products, very accurate determination of enantiomeric purity. Juchelka et al. have described a method for the authenticity determination of natural products which uses a combination of enantioselective multidimensional gas chromatography with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (28). In isotope ratio mass spectrometry, combustion analysis is combined with mass spectrometry, and the ratio of the analyte is measured versus a... 

Our group also demonstrated another combinatorial approach in which a CSP carrying a library of enantiomerically pure potential selectors was used directly to screen for enantioselectivity in the HPLC separation of target analytes [93, 94]. The best selector of the bound mixture for the desired separation was then identified in a few deconvolution steps. As a result of the parallelism advantage , the number of columns that had to be screened in this deconvolution process to identify the single most selective selector CSP was much smaller than the number of actual selectors in the library. 

Discrimination between the enantiomers of a racemic mixture is a complex task in analytical sciences. Because enantiomers differ only in their structural orientation, and not in their physico-chemical properties, separation can only be achieved within an environment which is unichiral. Unichiral means that a counterpart of the race-mate to be separated consists of a pure enantiomeric form, or shows at least enrichment in one isomeric form. Discrimination or separation can be performed by a wide variety of adsorption techniques, e.g. chromatography in different modes and electrophoresis. As explained above, the enantioseparation of a racemate requires a non-racemic counterpart, and this can be presented in three different ways ... 

Macaudiere et al. first reported the enantiomeric separation of racemic phosphine oxides and amides on native cyclodextrin-based CSPs under subcritical conditions [53]. The separations obtained were indicative of inclusion complexation. When the CO,-methanol eluent used in SFC was replaced with hexane-ethanol in LC, reduced selectivity was observed. The authors proposed that the smaller size of the CO, molecule made it less likely than hexane to compete with the analyte for the cyclodextrin cavity. 

Enantiomeric separations have proven to be one of the most successful applications of packed column SEC. Despite initial reluctance, many analysts now use SEC routinely for both analytical and preparative chiral separations. Additional studies of chiral recognition in SEC and continued improvements in instrumentation will ensure a prominent role for SEC in chiral separations methodology in the future. 

Racemic mixtures of sulfoxides have often been separated completely or partially into the enantiomers. Various resolution techniques have been used, but the most important method has been via diastereomeric salt formation. Recently, resolution via complex formation between sulfoxides and homochiral compounds has been demonstrated and will likely prove of increasing importance as a method of separating enantiomers. Preparative liquid chromatography on chiral columns may also prove increasingly important it already is very useful on an analytical scale for the determination of enantiomeric purity. 

Walsh and coworkers oxidized ethyl p-tolyl sulfide on an analytical scale to the S-sulfoxide of 64% enantiomeric purity using a bacterial flavoenzyme cyclohexanone monooxygenase derived from Adnetobacter . Using a flavin adenine dinucleotide containing monooxygenase purified from hog liver microsomes yielded the R-sulfoxide of 90% enantiomeric purity. HPLC on a column containing a 3,5-dinitrobenzoyl-D-phenylglycine chiral stationary phase was used to determine the optical purity of the sulfoxides. 

Separation of amino acids, peptides, and proteins Amino acids are interesting molecules by themselves from an analytical point of view for two reasons. They are inherently enantiomeric and are the building blocks of peptides and proteins. The separation of amino acids is usually done through a derivatization process due to the fact that the absorbance in the UV is low. The most frequently used derivatization is done by fluorescent tagging. Sensitivity can reach the subfemtomole level.136 139 Temperature control can be used to separate conformers.140 Two conformers of Tyr-Pro-Phe-Asp-Val-Val-Gly-NH2 and four conformers of Tyr-Pro-Phe-Gly-Tyr-Pro-Ser-NH2 were separated at subzero temperatures by including glycerol as an antifreeze component of the buffer. 

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