Application of an eremomycin-chiral stationary phase for the separation of dl-methionine using simulated moving bed technology

Recently a new chiral stationary phase (CSP) was introduced, based on the immobilization of the macrocyclic glycopeptide eremomycin to epoxy-activated silica. The application of this new CSP to preparative enantioseparation using simulated moving bed (SMB) chromatography will be presented. MeOH–H 2O (0.1 M NaH 2PO 4) = 20/80 (v/v) was used as the mobile phase to separate the enantiomers of methionine. Successful separation was realized providing productivities around 15 g product/l stat/h for both l and d-methionine under nonlinear conditions. In such delicate continuous chromatographic separation processes, besides productivity, the long-term stability of the applied stationary phases is of importance. Column to column fluctuations were negligible and long-term stability of the preparative stationary phase was satisfactory according to the results of perturbation experiments performed before and after long-term SMB runs.