Liquid Chromatography Enantioseparations of Halogenated Compounds on Polysaccharide-Based Chiral Stationary Phases: Role of Halogen Substituents in Molecular Recognition

Halogenated chiral molecules have become important in several fields of science, industry, and society as drugs, natural compounds, agrochemicals, environmental pollutants, synthetic products, and chiral supports. Meanwhile, the perception of the halogen moiety in organic compounds and its role in recognition processes changed. Indeed, the recognition of the halogen bond as an intermolecular interaction occurring when the halogen acts as a Lewis acid had a strong impact, particularly in crystal engineering and medicinal chemistry. Due to this renewed interest in the potentialities of chiral organohalogens, here we focus on selected recent applications dealing with enantioseparations of halogenated compounds on polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phases (CSPs), widely used in liquid chromatography (LC). In particular, recently the first case of halogen bonding-driven high-performance LC (HPLC) enantioseparation was reported on a cellulose-based CSP. Along with enantioseparations performed under conventional HPLC, representative applications using supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) are reported.