A high performance liquid chromatography method to routinely and reproducibly detect and quantitate metal complexes. The method comprises loading a solution containing metal complexes onto a column, eluting the metal complex from the column with a mobile phase, the mobile phase comprising an excess of a salt of a coordinating anion in a solvent system, and detecting the metal complex with a detector. Eluting the complex from the column with the mobile phase generates a metal complex in which the coordinating anion (which is a competent ligand) out-competes all other potential ligands present for the available coordination sites on the metal. The metal complexes used in the method of the invention can be different metal complexes, or they can be stereoisomers of the same metal complexes. The high performance liquid chromatography method of the present invention is suitable for the separation of diastereomers of the same metal complexes. Also provided is a chiral high performance liquid chromatography method to separate enantiomers of metal complexes. In this chiral high performance liquid chromatography method a chiral column is employed to achieve the separation of the enantiomers of metal complexes.
