The Evolution of Chiral Stationary Phases for Liquid Chromatography

The development of effective chiral stationary phases (CSPs) and separation strategies for the liquid chromatographic (LC) resolution of enantiomers has been beneficial to many scientific disciplines. Over the last decade the number and type of CSPs has expanded tremendously. Not only have new classes of chiral selectors been introduced, but also many of the first CSPs have been changed and/or improved. The second or third generation of a CSP often can be different from the original. This can be confusing and intimidating to someone just entering the area of LC enantiomeric separations. Fortunately, all CSPs can be categorized in one or another of a few classes. There are generally one or two columns that can accomplish the majority of separations in each class. In this work we look at the different classes of CSPs and how they have expanded and changed over the last decade.