Highly efficient chiral separation of amlodipine enantiomers via triple recognition hollow fiber membrane extraction.

In this study, a triple recognition chiral extraction process has been developed to separate (S)-amlodipine from racemic raw medicine, based on the combination of molecularly imprinted hollow fiber membrane and cross-flow biphasic recognition extraction. The chiral separation process was operated in a dismountable hollow fiber module coated with molecularly imprinted polymer, and the cross-flow extraction was applied with d-tartaric acid in feed phase and sulfobutyl ether-β-cyclodextrin in stripping phase. The synergistic effect of molecularly imprinted polymer and dual chiral additives was investigated, and excellent enantioseparation ability with a selectivity factor of 1.98 was obtained. Mathematical model of S/R=0.598e(0.150NTU) for racemic amlodipine separation by molecularly imprinted hollow fiber membrane extraction was established. The optical purity for amlodipine is up to 90% when 4 hollow fiber membrane modules of 25cm in length in series are used. The triple recognition process strongly enhanced the separation selectivity; therefore it may bring about the potentially application for large-scale production of pure enantiomeric compound.