Separation of triadimefon and triadimenol enantiomers and diastereoisomers by supercritical fluid chromatography

The enantiomeric separation of triadimenol and triadimefon on a Chiralpak AD column using supercritical fluid chromatography, was studied in this work. The effect of different modifiers (methanol, ethanol and 2-propanol) was tested, with methanol and ethanol providing the best results for the enantiomeric separation of the two compounds. The enantioseparation of a mixture of triadimenol and triadimefon (six stereoisomers) was achieved in only 15 min using a gradient of ethanol, 200 bar, 35 degreesC and a flow-rate of 2 ml/min. The separation of triadimenol diastereoisomers on different achiral columns (diol, silica and ODS) was also investigated. In this case, the type of organic modifier to be used depended on the stationary phase, the Spherex Diol being the column that gave the best separation. Using this column, resolutions higher than 3 were obtained in analysis times of 5 min with any of the modifiers checked. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.