Abstract

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is an effective technique to study chiral recognition because it offers flexibility in adjusting vital factors. Currently, various available cyclodextrins (CDs) can be employed for the chiral separation of numerous analytes. Herein, we investigate the enantioseparation behavior of lipoic acid enantiomers in various types of single and dual CD systems through CE. Additionally, several impacted CE parameters were optimized through the systematic investigation based on the design of experiment (DoE) concept for a single system comprising a heptakis (2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-β-CD and a dual system containing the combination of the single CD with a sulfated-β-CD. Consequently, absolute enantioresolution was obtained within 15 min on a common standard bare fused-silica capillary (64.5/56 cm in total/effective length, 50/365 ㎛ inner/outer diameter), maintained at 15 ℃ and at an applied voltage of 24 kV. The optimal background electrolyte consisted of 6 mM heptakis (2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-β-CD dissolved in the solution of 58 mM borate buffer at pH 10. Furthermore, the results of apparent binding constant experiments indicated that the S-enantiomer-heptakis (2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-β-CD complex exhibited a stronger affinity than its R-enantiomer counterpart. The obtained electrophoretic mobility values could be utilized to interpret the resolution achieved at various CD concentrations and the mobility behavior of the complexes elucidated the migration order of the enantiomers in an electropherogram.