OPTIMIZATION OF CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORETIC SEPARATION OF QUINOLONE ANTIBACTERIALS USING THE OVERLAPPING RESOLUTION MAPPING SCHEME

The capillary electrophoretic separation of fourteen quinolone antibac terials, viz., cinoxacin, ciprofloxacin, enoxacin, flumequine, lomeflo xacin, nalidixic acid, norfloxacin, ofloxacin, oxolinic acid, pefloxac in, pipemidic acid, piromidic acid, rosoxacin and sparfloxacin, was op timized by using the overlapping resolution mapping scheme. Three rele vant parameters to run buffer compositions, i.e., the concentrations o f sodium cholate and sodium heptanesulfonate, and the volume percentag e of acetonitrile, were chosen for optimization. Seven experiments wer e carried out to obtain the overlapped resolution diagram for locating the area of optimum separations. Following the predicted optimum cond ition, a baseline separation of the fourteen quinolones was achieved w ithin 8 min.