Effect of amine mobile phase additives on chiral subcritical fluid chromatography using polysaccharide stationary phases.

Increased retention and selectivity in the subcritical fluid chromatography (SFC) of various amine compounds on polysaccharide chiral stationary phases (CSP) was observed upon incorporation of cyclic amines into the modifier. The retention increases are most pronounced with 2-propanol and are almost absent when methanol is used as modifier. This suggests that the effect may arise from a restriction to the modifier access to the binding site required to effect elution. The effect of the amine additives in SFC does not remain after their removal from the mobile phase. Findings were applied to the development of a 5 min separation of amphetamine and methamphetamine enantiomers.

High performance liquid chromatographic evaluation of artemisinin, raw material in the synthesis of artesunate and artemether.

A barrier to the development of artemisinin derivative based combination treatment of malaria is the lack of defined specifications and purity test methods for the raw material artemisinin. An HPLC method previously published in the International Pharmacopoeia to evaluate purity of artemisinin as an active pharmaceutical ingredient is adapted for use. Excellent method precision and linearity are demonstrated along with observations of robustness. In support of the development of specifications major impurities are identified using high resolution HPLC-MS, isolation via preparative HPLC followed by NMR. The identified impurities differ from those previously claimed.

Chiral separations on polysaccharide stationary phases using polar organic mobile phases.

About 30% of a chemically diverse set of compounds were found to separate on four polysaccharide chiral stationary phases using polar organic mobile phases. No structural features appeared to correlate to successful separations. Titrations between normal and polar organic mobile phases suggested that separation mechanisms do not differ between these mobile phases. Attempts made to control retention met with varying degrees of success. Addition of hexane to alcohols had minor effects on retention although this was occasionally beneficial. Addition of water to alcohols increased retention. Addition of water to acetonitrile decreased retention. Addition of alcohol to acetonitrile also proved beneficial to the separation of some compounds. Loading studies performed to mimic preparative separations indicated that the benefits of polar organic mobile phases are largely due to increased solubility.

Memory effect of diethylamine mobile phase additive on chiral separations on polysaccharide stationary phases.

The existence of a memory effect for amine additives on polysaccharide chiral stationary phases has often been suggested, but not clearly demonstrated. Demonstration of this effect is made difficult by the uncertainty as to which analytes benefit from use of amine additives and, typically, an unclear history of column use. In this work, analytes were selected for differences in their behavior with and without additives. Columns were used with no prior history. A persistent memory effect was demonstrated on a CHIRALPAK AD-H column in hexane-based mobile phases. This effect was short-lived, with polar organic mobile phases. Memory was short-lived on a CHIRALCEL OJ-H column. Flushing with isopropanol was shown to remove most of the memory effect. Compounds expected to require amine additives on CHIRALCEL OD-H column did not. Acid treatment of the AD-H and OD-H columns changed their performance, which was subsequently restored by the incorporation of amine.