Preparation of a new crown ether-based chiral stationary phase containing thioester linkage for the liquid chromatographic separation of enantiomers.

A new chiral stationary phase (CSP) containing thioester linkages was prepared by bonding (+)-(18-crown-6)-2,3,11,12-tetracarboxylic acid to mercaptopropylsilica gel. The chiral recognition ability of the new CSP was found to be greater than that of the previously reported CSP containing amide linkages in the resolution of the various alpha-amino acids that were tested, except for that of Met, Ser and Thr. In the resolution of racemic amines and amino alcohols, the new CSP was always better than the one containing amide linkages in terms of the separation factors (alpha) and the resolutions (RS). Given the identical elution orders on the two CSPs, it was concluded that the chiral recognition mechanism is not affected by the change of the linkage type. In addition, the new CSP was found to be quite stable under the acidic mobile phase conditions that were utilized, indicating that the thioester linkage is useful as a tethering group.