Chiral Separations of Imidazole Antifungal Drugs on AmyCoat RP Column in HPLC

The chiral separations of four racemic imidazole antifungal drugs namely econazole, miconazole, isoconazole and sulconazole were achieved on AmyCoat RP column (150 x 4.6 mm, 3.0 mu m particle size). The mobile phases used were different combinations of water and acetonitrile. Besides, few drops of diethylamine and acetic acid were added to optimize chiral separation of sulconazole. The flow rates of mobile phases were 1.00 and 1.5 mL min(-1) with detection at 225 nm. The values of capacity, separation and resolution factors were 0.53-2.10, 1.45-1.98 and 1.29-1.97, respectively. Attempts have been made to describe chiral recognition mechanism at supra-molecular level. The reported chiral LC method is simple, fast and reproducible, and can be used for the resolution of these molecules in biological matrices.