Investigation of Enantiomer Separation Using Chiral Crown Ethers as Chiral Selectors

Abstract

A number of chiral selectors have been developed and applied for enantiomer separation of a variety of chiral compounds. Among these chiral selectors are chiral crown ethers, a class of synthetic host polyether molecules that bind protonated chiral primary amines with high selectivity and affinity. In this paper, two important chiral crown ethers as chiral selectors of bis-(1,1'-binaphthyl)-22-crown-6 and (18-crown-6)-2,3,11,12-tetracarboxylic acid (18-C-6-TA) are focused. They have been widely used to resolve the enantiomers of chiral compounds containing a primary amino moiety using chiral stationary phases (CSPs) or chiral selectors by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and so on in chirotechnology. Also, it was described that the commercially available covalent type HPLC CSPs derived from (+)- and (-)-18-C-6-TA have been developed and successfully applied for the resolution of various primary amino compounds including amino acids.