Enantiomer separations by capillary electrochromatography using chiral stationary phases

The applicability of capillary electrochromatography (CEC) using packed cap illary column to enantiomer separations was investigated. As chiral station ary phases, OD type packing materials of 5 and 3 mu m particle diameters, o riginally designed for conventional high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were employed. The chiral packing materials were packed by a pressur ized method into a 100 mu m I.D. fused-silica capillary. Several racemic en antiomers, such as acidic, neutral and basic drug components, were successf ully resolved, typically by using acidic or basic solutions containing acet onitrile as mobile phases. The separation efficiencies for some enantiomers in the chiral CEC system using the 5 mu m OD type packing were superior to those obtained in HPLC using chiral packings. The plate heights obtained f or several enantiomers were 8-13 mu m or the reduced plate height of 1.6-2. 6, which indicates the high efficiency of this chiral CEC system. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.