Separation of Water‐Soluble Vitamins by Micellar Electrokinetic Capillary Chromatography in Pharmaceutical Samples

Abstract

The separation of six water‐soluble vitamins (e.g., B₁—thiamine, B₂—riboflavin, B₃—nicotinic acid, B₆—pyridoxine, B₁₂—cyanocobalamin, and C—ascorbic acid) was investigated using capillary electrophoresis. Initially, the most important variables in micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography were established, such as: background electrolyte pH; surfactant concentration; detection wavelength; applied voltage, and amount of organic modifier. The solutes were separated within 8 min, with excellent efficiency (3 · 10⁵ theoretical plates) and resolution, which means great advantage towards the analysis of real samples. Two pharmaceutical samples were analyzed using the optimized method, which was shown to be adequate for this purpose.

Keywords:

• Vitamins
• Capillary electrophoresis
• MECC parameters
• Pharmaceutical samples

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank CNPQ, CAPES, and FAPESP for financial support and Amazon manipulation pharmacy for supplying the vitamin analytical standards.