Do you need to do semi-prep and/or prep separations or just analytical essays?

In case when you need to scale-up your separation, ChiralPak stationary phases offer a (relatively) good loadability. There are many kinds of ChiralPak phases, e.g. AD-H, IA, ADRH, etc. You can look them up in pdf on the web.

I need a chiral column for just analytical essays.

Thanks Jacek

All the above listed ones can be obtained as analytical columns from Daicel Europe, from Chiral Technologies, and also other vendors carry similar columns.

I find ChiralPak AD-H reliable, some people prefer ChiralPak IA, etc. Pdf manuals are available on the web.

It depends quite significantly on the functional groups of the drugs in question.

For most drugs that selection and relative polarity is quite limited. If it fits Lipinski's rules then you should have a good chance using a beta cyclodextrin based stationary phase.

I have a Chiral-AGP column (150 x 4.0mm, 5um, Chrom Tech). For instance, can I use it for separation of  enentomers of Omeprazol, Ibuprofen or Citalopram.

Thank you for your contributions.

Cengiz: There is no single chiral column designed to well resolve / separate most racemates available. Anyone that suggests you buy a specific chiral column without knowing what your exact sample is may be trying to take your money.

Instead of one column type, we have about one hundred or so 'marketed' chiral columns available to choose from. Some are the same exact column, with different reseller names on them (some are non-identical clones too), so do your homework when choosing. Price is no indicator of value in this case and they are all expensive (relative to a bare silica or C18 column). If you have details about your sample, then perform a quick search on the web (or journals) for suggestions, articles or application notes to give you an idea of what column may work. You might get some ideas this way. Some of the column resellers will also "screen" your sample for you to determine if any of the columns they sell will resolve it. Worth looking into if you have one sample.

Corrections to some of the info shared above.

Guard columns are often a waste of money for you. Filter samples before injecting and wash your column down after each run. *Proper chromatography training, operation and maintenance of your system always trumps extra add-on filters.

- Some quick general comments on the different forms of available chiral columns from the perspective that you need to resolve several different types of racemic compounds. -

Daicel (Chiral Technologies) offers Chiralpak and Chiralcel brand columns for both reversed phase and normal phase applications. As a matter of fact, several of their NP columns can be used in RP mode. These columns have a very wide range of selectivity. These columns generate the largest number of "hits" (esp. the coated phase versions) over anything on the market today. Perhaps 75% of all known compounds can be resolved on one of these columns.

Protein bound columns such as the AGP are obviously for RP only. This column also has wide selectivity, but overall generates only a small number of separations.

Pirkle type columns are also available, but IMHO these are some of the least effective columns for separating a range of compounds because most of them are designed to be used with additives and/or are very specific in their selectivity. One exception to this is a favorite of mine. The Whelk-0, 1 column is perhaps the second best type of commercially available, wide selectivity NP & RP chiral column. It uses a covalently bound support and can be used in different modes. Not as good as the Daicel columns, but a great general purpose column to have available.

The cyclodextrin columns (aplha, beta , gamma) are also available in different versions, but once again, they are very compound specific and of little use for general chiral screening or method development. If your compound's structural chemistry is compatible with one of these, than give it a try. Speaking in general, most pharmaceutical compounds are not separated on these columns. The wide selectivity columns mentioned above offer far more opportunities to resolve chiral compounds.

Thanks William  for your detailed response.  The information you provided is very useful for me.

Kind regards

Look at the azypusa.com website. Best columns for chiral RPLC and most amines. Faster and more efficient also as they are core shell types.

Thank you for your recommendations Daniel. Kind regards

Cyclofructan chiral stationary phases are efficient for enantiomeric separation of most of the amines.

Some additional unbiased advice (we do not sell any HPLC columns) on the topic of chiral HPLC & SFC column choice.

• "Chiral HPLC and SFC Column Screening Strategies for Method Development"; https://hplctips.blogspot.com/2011/06/chiral-hplc-and-sfc-column-screening.html

I will suggest you to use Phenomenex lux column which can replace all the above said columns. You can choose the column according to the functional group which is present in the drug and the type of stationary phase which can interact more with particular isomer than the others.

As someone with professional experience of both screening chiral columns from all of the major manufacturers and developing over 15,000 chiral HPLC and SFC (GC too) methods since the late 1980's, I would strongly disagree with "E. Chinnaraja's" (or anyone) suggestion and sweeping generalization above regarding how a Phenomenex brand Lux column will solve all your chiral separation needs (sounds like a commercial from them). In all of our years of testing and screening chiral columns, we have never observed a LUX column to result in any significant number of chiral separations for real-world racemates (esp. Pharma or specialty chemical samples). We would be thrilled and excited to discover that a single chiral support really did work that well, but there is no such single column from Phenomenex or any other company at this time. In fact, the vast majority of chiral columns sold today do not work well at all for most samples, and the older, broad range chiral supports (mentioned by name in my earlier posts) are still the preferred choices. Bottom line: A range of chiral HPLC columns is still needed to resolve the wide range of available racemates. Don't let anyone talk you into ONE chiral column for all of your applications.

For those interested in developing scientific methods to resolve chiral racemates apart, please stick with the previous unbiased and free advice provide by me (I do not sell any chiral or achiral HPLC columns. It is because of the fact that most chiral methods and columns are very poor at resolving racemates apart that I founded Chiralizer Services many years ago. We started screening columns against real-world samples to find out which columns and column chemistries actually generated the most hits. Decades of data have provided us with high quality results to base our findings on).

Please carefully check second line of my answer, "You can choose the column according to the functional group which is present in the drug and the type of stationary phase which can interact more with particular isomer than the others".

I am not suggesting to use any particular column of particular company. From my experience, above said column was given best results than the others for particular product. Hence I suggested it may work better.

I will 2nd Bill's answer above! If there are NO universal C18 columns which can separate 'everything', why would you expect a chiral column you separate every stereoisomer in God's universe?