Enantiomeric enrichment of non-racemic mixtures of binaphthol with non-chiral packings

It is shown that chromatography with achiral phases of non-racemic mixture of binaphthol can furnish fractions which differ in enantiomeric excess. The first fraction contains one pure enantiomer i.e., has an enantiomeric excess (ee %) close to 100% and the following fractions have an ee % close to 0% (racemic mixture). As a consequence, such chromatography may be used to enrich a non-racemic mixture of binaphthol in one enantiomer. In this paper a model is proposed allowing us to calculate with good accuracy the experimental elution curves. This simple model is capable of using only a few chromatographic experiments to predict the enantiomeric enrichment of a non-racemic mixture and to calculate precisely the retention time of each fraction. © 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.