Detection of Chiral Compounds Using HPLC with CD Detection

Chiral detectors provide valuable information since they only respond to optically active compounds. This allows the researcher to differentiate enantiomers. A sensitivity comparison between the two chiral detection techniques optical rotation (ORD) and circular dichroism (CD) was conducted with a variety of compounds to demonstrate the effectiveness of the techniques. Chiral separation has become one of the most important applications of HPLC. Chiral analysis has become critical in drug development because in many cases like thalidomide one enantiomer has health benefits while the other is toxic or mutagenic. Chiral detection has previously been limited to optical rotary dispersion (ORD) or polarimetry. Optical rotation-based detectors are based on differences in refractive index. Circular dichroism-based detectors differentiate enantiomers by measuring differences between the absorption of right and left-handed circularly polarized light. These detectors provide higher sensitivity and a stable signal which is not affected by gradient analysis.