Performance of brush-type HPLC chiral stationary phases with tertiary amide in the connecting tether

The replacement of the N-H hydrogen of the secondary amide-tethered Pirkle-concept N-(3,5-dinitrobenzoyl)-L-leucine derived chiral stationary phase with various pi-basic or aliphatic groups improved the chiral discrimination ability of new chiral stationary phases, based on the leucine- or alanine-derived chiral selector, for the enantiomers of various racemic neutral analytes with amide functional groups. Retention times decreased while separation and resolution factors increased, thus proving the role of pi-donor aromatic unit as an electron-rich shield in the front of a silica surface. In general, chiral stationary phase (CSP) 5 with the 3,5-dimethylphenyl unit showed best performance, while CSP 3, with phenyl unit, and CSP 7, with 1-naphthyl unit in the tertiary amide connecting tether, were less efficient.