Chiral ionic liquids (CILs) containing imidazolium cations and L-Proline (L-Pro) anions were applied as chiral selector to separate tryptophan (Trp) enantiomers on a C18 column by ligand exchange chromatography. Several factors influencing Trp enantiomers separation, such as alkyl chain length of CILs, concentrations of Cu2+ and CILs, pH of the mobile phase, flow rate, organic solvent and temperature, were studied. Under the optimal conditions, the Trp enantiomers could be successfully separated within 21 min with the resolution of 2.30. At the same time, some thermodynamical parameters were obtained. The experimental results show that the enthalpy values of the Trp enantiomers are negative, indicating that the separation process is exothermic. And the enthalpy values of D-Trp are larger than those of L-Trp, which indicates that L-Trp could form more stable ternary complexes with tryptophan enantiomers.
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