Chiral HPLC techniques have gained a great importance for the analytical separation and the preparative isolation of enantiopure compounds. Such a success can be explained by the unique ability of chiral HPLC to provide both enantiomers. This can be directly achieved by using chiral stationary phases (CSPs) where the chiral selector is chemically bound, coated or, otherwise attached to the surface of the support material.

In chiral HPLC, the enantioselective recognition process involves the formation of transient diastereomeric complexes between the analyte and the chiral discriminating agent. Crucial information about the mechanism of chromatographic separations are obtainable by molecular modelling, quantum chemistry and related calculations techniques which are, nowadays, a practical and valuable utilities for the exploration of the atomistic modelling of the enantioselection.

Since high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is widely used as a preparative and analytical way to separate racemates, thousands of articles and experiments concerning the topic are now available in the literature. ChirBase is today the most comprehensive molecular database which gathers all chiral HPLC separations with their associated experimental data.