ABSTRAC7The determination of lipophilicity of the title compounds allowed treatment of the data for chiral separation (capacity factors) on CTA and CTPB accordmg to these parameters. A linear correlation between In k'(+) and log k'w was found on both CTA and CTPB, as far as the substituents are situated in the plane of the aryl ring or the heterocycle. This correlation with a nonchiral descriptor allows treatment of capacity factors for (-)-enantiomers as deviations from the lipophilicity line or derived parallels. It results in a clear description of the molecular area affecting enantioselectivity. Application to larger alkyl derivatives shows that the effect of the substituent should be treated on a basis of attractive effect in the case of CTA and on the basis of attractive and repulsive effects for CTPB. KEY WORDS: chiral HPLC, experimental design, quantitative substituent effects, recognition mechanism Chiral recognition mechanisms in cooperative CSPs such as cellulose derivatives provide a fascinating field of research'" since the discriminating sites are not clearly identified in contrast to the molecular CSPs in which the chiral selector is well defined."6 As a consequence, the methodologies to address chiral discrimination in cooperative phases will be different than those applied in the case of a well-defined molecular selector. Stereoselectivity for a given couple of antipodes results from the energy difference between diastereomeric solute-CSP complexes whereas capacity factors k' are related to the energy of interaction of each enantiomer with the CSP. In cooperative CSP one approach might be to develop a series of molecules which are structurally related and which differ by appropriate substitutions around the same framework. If one can linearize the effect of the substitution pattern for each enantiomer of the same configuration, the enantioselectivity will be simply the difference between these two linearisations for a given set of substituents. Such a linearisation might be performed using the PLS approach,7 however, it seems clear that chiral descriptors as well as nonchiral descriptors are needed.The lipophilicity parameter is one of the nonchiral descriptors generally used in studies of quantitative structure-activity relationship.' To obtain a relationship between chiral retention of enantiomers and their lipophilic interaction within a chiral phase, we have determined the capacity factors on cellulose triacetate CTA and trisu-methylbenzoy1)cellulose beads CTPB chiral stationary phases and the lipophilicity parameters for a series of N-aryl substituted heterocyclic atropisomers (the general structure is given in Fig. 1 1-8 are related by a factorial design approach which allows the quantification of the effects of structural parameters X,, X,, X, on the chiral retention on CTA,' CTPB,l" and on the lipophilicity parameter. In this paper we attempt to relate the capacity factor of the enantiomers of compounds 1-8 with their lipophilicity parameter and to extend the approach to chiral separation...