"Click" preparation of a chiral macrocycle-based stationary phase for both normal-phase and reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography enantioseparation.

Chiral polyimine macrocycles (CPMs) constitute a new family of organic macrocycles that have defined cavities, rigid shapes, inherent chirality and multiple cooperative binding sites, and have shown great potential in diverse areas. However, the application of CPMs for high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) enantioseparation has rarely been reported. In this work, a novel chiral stationary phase (CSP) for HPLC was prepared by chemical bonding of a CPM (CHNO) onto thiolated silica via thiol-ene click reaction. The CSP exhibited good enantioselectivity in both normal- and reversed-phase HPLC. Chiral compounds included alcohols, diols, ketones, organic acids, esters, ethers, amines, and epoxides were enantioseparated on the column in normal-phase mode (17 compounds) and reversed-phase mode (20 compounds). Importantly, broader chiral resolution was observed with the column than that obtained using our previously studied chiral macrocycle HL-based column, indicating the potential to significantly improve and broaden applicability of this novel macrocycle-type CSPs. Moreover, the CSP exhibited good complementary enantioseparation to Chiralpak AD-H and Chiralcel OD-H columns, enabling separation of some racemates that could not be separated by the two popular chiral HPLC columns. In addition, the fabricated column exhibited good stability and reproducibility. The relative standard deviations (RSDs) (n = 5) of retention time and resolution after multiple injections were < 0.20 % and < 0.39 %, respectively. The results demonstrated the great potential of this type of CPM for HPLC separation of enantiomers.