Development of Bovine Serum Albumin-Bonded Silica as a Chiral Stationary Phase and Its Application in Quantitative Direct Enantiomeric Resolution

This paper reports the development of a bovine serum albumin-bonded silica gel-based chiral stationary phase (CSP); it was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, elemental analysis, FTIR and UV–vis spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction. The CSP was successful in providing direct resolution of organic racemates (propranolol, atenolol, and phenylalanine) at a scale of 30 mg to 3.0 g with very good separation efficiency using simple open-column chromatography. The strategy developed here can easily be applied to other types of racemates and for large-scale quantitative separations. The reported method is superior for its simplicity and cost and is preparative in real terms over the existing methods for enantiomeric resolution involving CSPs, capillary electrophoresis, and preparative HPLC; though the latter are useful in determining enantiomeric purity, they are really not preparative and have high running and equipment costs.