Triazolo-linked cinchona alkaloid carbamate anion exchange-type chiral stationary phases: Synthesis by click chemistry and evaluation

Immobilization strategy based on Huisgen 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition (click chemistry) of 10,11-didehydrocinchona tert-butylcarbamates to azido-grafted silica gels has been evaluated for preparation of novel chiral stationary phases (CSP 1–3). The resultant 1,2,3-triazole-linked CSPs were tested under various mobile phase conditions (polar organic and reversed phase mode) with a representative set of structurally diverse racemic acids including N-protected aminoacids, aromatic and aryloxycarboxylic acids as well as binaphthol phosphate. The chiral recognition performance of the C3-triazole-linked CSPs was found to mirror largely that of the known C3-thioether-linked CSP in terms of elution order, enantioselectivity and retention behavior. In an effort to assess the non-specific binding expressed as retention increment of these triazole-linked CSPs, the parent azidopropyl- and triazole-modified silica materials (thus not containing the chiral head ligand) were studied independently. Compared with the corresponding CSPs, the analyte retention on the azidopropyl control column was very low, and practically negligible on the corresponding triazole-modified reference column. Only minor losses in analyte retention behavior (<5%) were observed with triazole-linked CSPs after two month of continuous use with polar–organic and reversed-phase-type mobile phases, highlighting the excellent stability of the 1,2,3-triazole linker.