Origin of enhanced chiral selectivity by acidic additives for a polysaccharide-based stationary phase

The effects of ethanesulfonic acid (ESA) and n-butylamine as additives were studied for a wide variety of chiral compounds using the polysaccharide chiral stationary phase (CSP), Chiralpak AD. The mobile phase consisted of hexane-ethanol (90:10, v/v). The additives typically had small effects, with one exception: the acidic additive had an enormous effect on the chiral selectivity of amino acid esters. The improved chiral selectivity was largely due to the longer retention of the later eluting enantiomer. Retention behavior of amines indicated that the higher selectivity for amino acid esters owes to increased hydrogen-bonding donation by the amine group of the analyte. Computation establishes the feasibility of a planar complex between the analyte and the cliral stationary phase, involving a pair of complementary hydrogen-bonding groups on each species, enabled by protonation of the analyte. Retention behaviors for a range of structures point to steric hindrance as the third interaction to comprise the requisite three interactions in chiral recognition.