Comparative enantioseparation of planar chiral ferrocenes on polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phases

Planar chiral ferrocenes are well-known compounds that have attracted interest for application in synthesis, catalysis, material science, and medicinal chemistry for several decades. In spite of the fact that asymmetric synthesis procedures for obtaining enantiomerically enriched ferrocenes are available, sometimes, the accessible enantiomeric excess of the chiral products is unsatisfactory. In such cases and for resolution of racemic planar chiral ferrocenes, enantioselective high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) on polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phases (CSPs) has been used in quite a few literature articles. However, although moderate/high enantioselectivities have been obtained for planar chiral ferrocenes bearing polar substituents, the enantioseparation of derivatives containing halogens, or exclusively alkyl groups, remains rather challenging. In this study, the enantioseparation of ten planar chiral 1,2- and 1,3-disubstituted ferrocenes was explored by using five polysaccharide-based CSPs under multimodal elution conditions. Baseline enantioseparations were achieved for nine analytes with separation factors (alpha) ranging from 1.20 to 2.92. The presence of pi-extended systems in the analyte structure was shown to impact affinity of the most retained enantiomer toward amylose-based selectors, observing retention times higher than 80 min with methanol-containing mobile phases (MPs). Electrostatic potential (V) analysis and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were used in order to study interaction modes at the molecular level.

Automated summary

Planar chiral ferrocenes have various applications in synthesis, catalysis, material science, and medicinal chemistry. This study investigated the enantioseparation of ten planar chiral 1,2- and 1,3-disubstituted ferrocenes using polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phases (CSPs) under multimodal elution conditions. Baseline enantioseparations were achieved for nine analytes, demonstrating the potential of polysaccharide-based CSPs for efficient separation of planar chiral ferrocenes.