THE ANALYSIS OF CHEMICALS AND BIOCHEMICALS BY HIGH PERFORMANCE CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS

Abstract

Analytical methods based on the use of high performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) were developed for chemical and biochemical applications. Analyses of selected groups of compounds including antibiotics, steroids and plant growth regulators were performed. Optimum conditions for the separations were obtained. The effects of operating conditions, such as pH, buffer modifiers and applied voltage were investigated. Satisfactory separation of the antibiotics could be obtained by varying the pH of the electrophoretic medium. For the separation of the steroids, the addition of bile salts into the electrophoretic medium was found to provide enhanced resolution. Quantitation of antibiotics and steroids in commercial samples were performed using the optimum separation conditions. In the case of the plant growth regulators, satisfactory separations could be achieved by the use of a mixed modifier system, in which ?, ? and ?-cyclodextrins were added to the electrophoretic buffer. To determine the optimum compositions of the modifiers, a systematic optimization scheme was employed. The scheme was based on the overlapping resolution mapping procedure which requires only a set of seven pre-planned experiments to be performed. Optimum conditions for the separation could be obtained from an overlapped resolution map. The results obtained in this work have demonstrated that HPCE is potentially an extremely powerful analytical tool which is capable of rapid and highly efficient separations for chemical and biochemical applications.