High performance liquid chromatographic separation of eight drugs collected in Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2010 on amylose ramification chiral stationary phase

Abstract The enantiomers separation of eight pharmaceutical racemates collected in Chinese Pharmacopoeia 2010 (Ch.P2010), including nitrendipine, felodipine, omeprazole, praziquantel, sulpiride, clenbuterol hydrochloride, verapamil hydrochloride and chlorphenamine maleate, was performed on chiral stationary phase of amylose ramification by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on Chiralpak AD-H column and Chiralpak AS-H column with the mobile phase consisted of isopropanol and n -hexane. The detection wavelength and the flow rate were set at 254 nm and 0.7 mL/min, respectively. The effects of proportion of organic additives, alcohol displacer and temperature on the separation were investigated. The results indicated that eight chiral drugs were separated on chiral stationary phase of amylase ramification in normal phase chromatographic system. The chromatographic retention and resolution of enantiomers were adjusted by factors, including the changes of the concentration of alcohol displacer in mobile phase, organic alkaline modifier and column temperature. It was shown that the resolution was improved with reducing concentration of alcohol displacer. When the concentration of organic alkaline modifier was 0.2%, the resolution and the peak shape were fairly good. Most racemates mentioned above had the best resolution at column temperature of 25 °C. The best temperature should be kept unchanged in the process of separation so as to obtain stable separation results.