The development of chiral HPLC methods and isolation techniques within
Zeneca Agrochemicals (formerly ICI Agrochemicals) is reviewed. The us
e of low temperature to improve chiral separations has been successful
ly applied to production analysis, but although useful for some compou
nds it is regrettably not a universal panacea for all poor separations
. The need to isolate small quantities of individual enantiomers from
new compounds for research evaluation has led us to devise a more univ
ersal and cheap chiral stationary phase (CSP) for Preparative-LC. Join
t academic research produced a CSP based on tartaric acid which was ma
de commercially available and it was gratifying to find it was the onl
y phase able to resolve a novel insecticide. However, as new CSPs emer
ged almost every month, our attention turned to using a universal chir
al detector for analysis, rather than via separation of individual ena
ntiomers. Diode laser-based polarimeters offered the opportunity of ch
eap, sensitive chiroptical detectors for HPLC and the ability to move
away from chiral columns in both research and production analysis. Joi
ntly sponsored research with a university has successfully explored th
e versatility of chiroptical detectors in agrochemical and food analys
is. Comparison of chiral SFC with chiral HPLC and an extensive evaluat
ion of established and research agrochemicals on a wide range of comme
rcial CSPs have led to a revised method development strategy. Current
work with high load displacement chiral chromatography will be describ
ed as a potential means of isolating pure enantiomers from racemates.
(C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.