Enantioseparation by CE with vancomycin as chiral selector: Improving the separation performance by dynamic coating of the capillary with poly(dimethylacrylamide)

An approach for improving the separation performance of the enantioseparation by CE with vancomycin as chiral selector is described. In the present method, a solution of poly(dimethylacrylamide) (PDMA) was used for dynamic coating of the capillary wall to minimize the adsorption of vancomycin onto the capillary wall, and to depress the EOF. Compared with the bare fused-silica capillaries and the capillaries coated with the polycationic polymer hexadimethrine bromide (HDB), the PDMA-coated capillary displayed the best separation performance. The resulting coating could withstand hundreds of runs without losing its function. Moreover, a partial filling technique was applied to avoid interference in detection caused by the presence of vancomycin in the buffer. The separation time was shortened when a short-end-injection technique was applied. Several parameters such as buffer pH, vancomycin concentration and plug length of the vancomycin solution for the separation were optimized. Under the optimal conditions, all tested enantiomers, including FMOC amino acids derivatives, ketoprofen and fenoprofen, were baseline-separated in less than 4.2 min.