Thermodynamic and kinetic study of chiral separations of coumarin-based anticoagulants on derivatized amylose stationary phase

Thermodynamic and kinetic studies are performed on amylose derivatized with tris-(3,5-dimethylphenyl carbamate) stationary phase for the chiral separation of coumarin-based anticoagulants. Polar-organic eluents that contain acetonitrile as bulk solvent with modifiers such as methanol, i-butanol, t-butanol, and tetrahydrofuran are used in the study. Temperature is varied from 5 to 45 °C at constant pressure of 1500 psi. In general, both retention and enantioselectivity decrease as the temperature increases and as hydrogen bond donating ability of the modifiers increases. The van’t Hoff plots are found to show both linear and non-linear behavior. The non-linear plots are believed to be the result of conformational changes in the derivatized amylose phase and are observed around room temperature. The retention behavior in acetonitrile mobile phase provides a linear enthalpy–entropy compensation plot, indicating that all coumarins may have a similar retention mechanism. In contrast, enthalpy–entropy compensation is not observed for warfarin and coumatetralyl enantiomers when separated with different organic modifiers in the mobile phase. The kinetic data indicate that the rate of sorption is always greater than the rate of desorption. An increase in the concentration of alcohol modifiers causes an increase in the desorption rate constant. In contrast, an increase in the concentration of tetrahydrofuran causes a decrease in the desorption rate constant. This effect is most significant for the second eluted enantiomer of coumatetralyl, for which the desorption rate is 36 times slower than the first eluted enantiomer.