Synthesis, characterisation and supercritical fluid chromatography enantioseparation of new liquid crystalline materials

Enantiomeric excess (EE) highly affects the mesomorphic properties of mesogens containing centre of chirality. Thus, there is need of methods for evaluation of the EE of newly synthesised compounds as it should be considered when discussing the mesomorphic properties. We report synthesis and characterisation of ten new racemic mixtures based on (R,S)-3-octanol, which were used to develop an enantioseparation method that can be used for the assessment of the EE of chiral liquid crystals and their mixtures. The compounds vary in the length of the oligomethylene spacer and lateral fluorine substitution of the aromatic core. The mesomorphic properties of novel materials were measured. Supercritical fluid chromatography with polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phases was used to develop reliable method for enantioseparation of the materials. A complete separation of (S) and (R) enantiomers with resolution values higher than 2.0 was obtained for all materials using simple mobile phase. The enantiomer elution order was assessed using pure (S) enantiomers of all materials. For all materials (R) enantiomer elutes first which is advantageous for use as optical purity control of newly synthesised (S) enantiomers.