Enantioseparations of basic and bifunctional pharmaceuticals by capillary electrochromatography using polysaccharide stationary phases

A fast screening strategy was developed in capillary electrochromatography (CEC) for the chiral separation of basic and bifunctional compounds. The screening conditions were determined on polysaccharide chiral stationary phases using 15 pharmaceutical compounds. The content and type of organic modifier, as well as the pH of the mobile phase appeared to have the largest influence on the chiral resolution. It was seen that for acidic compounds, our approach was not suitable. A generic mobile phase for basic and bifunctional compounds was determined. The testing on 20 additional compounds showed that the proposed mobile phase performed well since enantioselectivity was observed for 86% of the investigated compounds. A comparison of CEC and reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) results was attempted to demonstrate the potential of the used technique for chiral method development.