Chromatographic separations based on tartaric acid and its derivatives

The enormous importance of chirality in chemistry, biology, and pharmacology is well established today. In particular, the often considerably different bioactivities of individual enantiomers of chiral drugs necessitate their separation and independent evaluation. Tartaric acid played an eminent role in the evolution of stereochemistry as well as in the development of enantioseparation techniques. This brief survey deals with the application of tartaric acid and its derivatives in various chromatographic separation methods, such as HPLC, GC, and TLC, with focus on the more recent literature. It is based on a contribution presented at the 46th EuroCongress on Drug Synthesis and Analysis, 2017 in Bratislava, Slovakia. Graphical abstract