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Abstract

Chemical synthesis as well as fermentation processes often lead to complex mixtures of products. For the separation of the often thermally labile products, the application of a gentle and selective method like liquid chromatography is a suitable way to go. A broad range of procedures has recently been developed [1] and is used for the production of highly pure pharmaceutical and biotechnological substances. Special attention is paid at present to the resolution of racemic mixtures to yield optically pure enantiomers [2]. In addition to the ongoing optimization of discontinuous processes such as the classical elution (or batch) chromatography or recycling chromatography, at present much effort is put into the application of the Simulated Moving Bed (SMB) chromatography [3] - which is well established in petrochemistry and in sugar industry - for the usually difficult separation of enantiomers [e. g. 4 - 6]. In this paper the application of SMB-chromatography for the resolution of two racemic mixtures shall be described. First a simple mathematical model of the chromatographic process as well as the methods for the determination of the essential parameters are defined, then the results of various SMB experiments are presented and compared to model predictions. © 2000 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, Weinheim, Fed. Rep. of Germany [accessed 2013 November 29th]