Liquid Chromatographic Enantiomer Separation of α-Amino Acid Esters as Nitrobenzoxadiazole Derivatives Using Polysaccharide-Derived Chiral Stationary Phases

Liquid chromatographic enantiomer separation of -amino acid esters as nitrobenzoxadiazole (NBD) derivatives was performed using several chiral stationary phases (CSPs) based on polysaccharide derivatives under fluorescence detection. For enantiomer separation by normal HPLC, the non-aqueous derivatization method of -amino acid esters for NBD analytes was introduced. Among the six CSPs used in this study, the performance of Chiralpak IA was superior for enantiomer resolution of NBD derivatives of several -amino acid methyl esters. Also the convenient analytical method using polysaccharide-derived CSPs developed in this study was applied to determine the optical purity of -amino acids esters. It was investigated that the enantiomeric impurity levels of 0.02-1.73% were found after determination of enantiomeric purities of several commercially available L-amino acid methyl esters. It is expected to be quite useful for enantiomer separation of other -amino acid esters as NBD derivatives by normal HPLC.