Recent trends and applications in liquid phase chromatography enantioseparation of atropisomers

The term Atropisomerism defines a type of enantiomerism that arises from hindered rotation around an axis that makes two rotational isomers enantiomers. Atropisomeric compounds are present in nature, being important building blocks of many biologically active compounds. Atropisomers have been extensively studied in environmental and toxicological chemistry and, in particular, separating them has become a need in specific fields as organic synthesis and pharmaceutical research. High-performance liquid chromatography has been fruitfully applied in this context, and, despite HPLC separation on chiral stationary phase (CSP) is considered as mature technology nowadays, in the last years several advancements and applications contributed to study compounds where axial chirality is of utmost importance. Moreover, dynamic chromatography has been exploited as a versatile tool for kinetic studies of systems with slow internal motion gaining essential information on their stereodynamic behaviour. On this basis, current topics and trends in liquid phase chromatography enantioseparation of atropisomers are presented herein with specific focus on new representative applications with HPLC, covering years 2010-2016. Some examples concerning supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) applications are also reported. This review aims to provide the reader with a modern overview of the field in order to highlight the renewed interest towards the chemistry of molecules with atropisomeric properties. A systematic compilation of all published literature has not been attempted.