Enantiomers are mirror image isomers of the same compound. It is widely understood that life science chemical interactions, can have a significant molecular chirality dependence. Compounds with this special category of isomers, have many identical physical and chemical properties. Separating and quantifying enantiomers, is one of the most challenging analytical tasks.  The active ingredients in many modern pesticides have chiral structures. Often there are dramatic differences between these enantiomers with respect to efficacy and toxicity. From a manufacturing perspective, there are many compelling reasons to know the chiral composition of a pesticide. This type of analysis can be accomplished with typical analytical techniques since there is a significant amount of sample available. However, many chiral compounds can convert from one form to the other by chemical means. If this conversion occurs in the environment, trace analysis will be necessary to monitor these materials. Very sensitive detection techniques such as triple quad mass spectrometry will be required. Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) is a powerful technique for the chromatographic separation of chiral compounds and it can be coupled to a mass spectrometer for detection.  The work presented will use a variety of modern chiral pesticides as examples to describe a general approach for chiral SFC method development. Topics will include the selection of eluent components, screening of chiral chromatography columns and detector selection. Examples will be given that utilize UV detection, single quad MS detection and triple quad MS-MS detection.

Chiral chromatography of pesticides with SFC and SFC-MS

256th National Meeting (2018)

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