Application of an eremomycin-chiral stationary phase for the separation of DL-methionine using simulated moving bed technology.

Recently a new chiral stationary phase (CSP) was introduced, based on the immobilization of the macrocyclic glycopeptide eremomycin to epoxy-activated silica. The application of this new CSP to preparative enantioseparation using simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography will be presented. MeOH-H(2)O (0.1M NaH(2)PO(4))=20/80 (v/v) was used as the mobile phase to separate the enantiomers of methionine. Successful separation was realized providing productivities around 15 g(product)/l(stat)/h for both l and d-methionine under nonlinear conditions. In such delicate continuous chromatographic separation processes, besides productivity, the long-term stability of the applied stationary phases is of importance. Column to column fluctuations were negligible and long-term stability of the preparative stationary phase was satisfactory according to the results of perturbation experiments performed before and after long-term SMB runs.