Capillary Electrophoresis : an Attractive Technique for Chiral Separations

Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) separates compounds that differ in charge to hydrodynamic size ratio and is an excellent technique for the analysis of polar compounds. The technique is particularly applicable to chiral separations. Chiral CE separation is achieved by adding a chiral selector to the so called background electrolyte. The enantiomers then form fast, reversible equilibria with the selector. In this paper a simple method development strategy for basic, acidic and neutral compounds is presented and illustrated with examples and common pitfalls. Some important good working practices (background electrolyte buffer recipes, temperature, corrected peak area, injection, polyimide coating removal from capillary ends) are highlighted, so that a good chiral separation can be developed into a robust analytical method.