Separation of enantiomers in capillary electrophoresis with contactless conductivity detection

Contactless conductivity detection is successfully demonstrated for the enantiomeric separation of basic drugs and amino acids in capillary electrophoresis (CE). Derivatization of the compounds or the addition of a visualization agent as for indirect optical detection schemes were not needed. Non-charged chiral selectors were employed, hydroxypropylated cyclodextrin (CD) for the more lipophilic basic drugs and 18-crown-6-tetracarboxylic acid (18C6H4) for the amino acids. Acidic buffer solutions based on lactic or citric acid were used. The detection limits were determined as 0.3 μM for pseudoephedrine as an example of a basic drug and were in the range from 2.5 to 20 μM for the amino acids.