Comparison of monomeric and polymeric amino acid based surfactants for chiral separations

To better understand chiral recognition with polymeric amino acid based surfactants, the chromatographic performance of 18 monomeric and polymeric surfactants were compared for chiral analytes with various charge states and hydrophobicities. In this study, four amino acids (glycine, l-alanine, l-valine, and l-leucine) were chosen, and all possible combinations of the chiral single amino acid and dipeptide surfactants were synthesized. The results indicate that polymeric surfactants usually provide better chiral resolution for enantiomers of lorazepam, temazepam, 1,1′-bi-2-naphthol, and propranolol as compared to monomeric surfactants. In contrast, monomers perform better for chiral recognition of the 1,1′-bi-2-naphthyl-2,2′-diyl hydrogenphosphate enantiomers.