Kinetic and equilibrium study of the separation of propranolol enantiomers by high performance liquid chromatography on a chiral adsorbent

Abstract

The kinetic and equilibrium constants for the chromatographic enantioseparation of racemic propranolol, using cellulose tri(3,5-dimethyl-phenylcarbamate) as the chiral stationary phase and hexane and isopropanol as the mobile phase, were evaluated by moment analysis on the basis of equilibrium-dispersive and linear driving force models. The overall mass transfer coefficients were evaluated to be 0.56 s-1 and 1.08 s-1 for the S-(-) and R-(+) enantiomers of propranolol. Other system properties, required as input parameters for the modelling and simulation of the process under consideration, including the voidage of the column and the axial dispersion coefficient, were also determined. The parameters obtained were used to simulate the two single enantiomer band profiles at different flow rates. The simulated results were found to match the experimental results quite well. These parameters are very important for the design of preparative chromatography.