Simulated moving-bed for separation of mandelic acid racemic mixtures

摘要

Two enantiomers that constitute a racemate have different activities when employed as Pharmaceuticals. Consequently, the pharmaceutical industry has been forced to market pure enantiomers instead of the racemic mixture. Simulated moving bed (SMB) is a chromatographic process that operates continuously without losing the enantio-meric purity of outlet streams from SMB. The present work describes the enantioseparation of mandelic acid in a lab-scale SMB unit. Chiral stationary phase was made by packing Kromasil TBB (O,O'-bis(4-tert-buylbenzoyl) -N,N'-diallyl-L-tartar diamid) gel into empty columns. The outlet streams were sampled and analyzed by an analytical HPLC. Analysis indicated that purity values range from 82% to 94% according to the change of extract stream flow rate.