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Abstract
Capillary electrophoresis has been shown to be a stereoselective and sensitive technique, suitable for the resolution and quantitation of enantiomers. Use of chiral recognition agents, both in free solution and in micellar modes, provides a successful, versatile and inexpensive means of developing chiral separation methods. A method for enantiomer resolution is described for D- and L-phenylalanine methyl ester in free solution, using UV detection at 210 nm. Fused silica capillaries were employed with a borate buffer system incorporating a range of chiral recognition agents, to effect the separation. A resolution of 1.18 was obtained for the two enantiomers using β-cyclodextrin, with an efficiency of 303,250 theoretical plates per meter achieved for the L-phenylalanine methyl ester. The method is linear over the concentration range 15-1000 μg ml−1 and the mass limit of detection was found to be 5 x 10−15 mole.