Determination of the adsorption isotherm of the naproxen enantiomers on (S,S)-Whelk-O1 in supercritical fluid chromatography

The adsorption isotherms of the naproxen enantiomers were measured on a Kromasil Whelk-O1 column, eluted with mixtures of supercritical carbon dioxide and methanol or ethanol. Five chromatographic methods were used: frontal analysis, frontal analysis by characteristic points, elution by characteristic points, retention time method and the inverse method. In all methods, the effects of the two modifiers were compared. The use of these methods suffers from limitations due to supercritical fluid chromatographic instruments. These problems and drawbacks are discussed. The accurate and precise determination of the isotherm parameters was not possible with the instrument currently used. In contrast, the different methods allow to show qualitatively that the adsorption of the naproxen enantiomers show heterogeneous mechanism on the adsorbent surface common in chiral chromatography. Finally, the experimental high concentration elution band profiles of naproxen are compared with those calculated from the isotherm parameters provided by the five different methods.