CE coupling with end-column electrochemiluminescence detection for chiral separation of disopyramide

CE with electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detection technique was successfully applied for the chiral separation of a kind of class IA antiarrhythmic racemic drug. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of ECL detection used in chiral CE. To get better detection sensitivity and good enantioresolution at the same time, the conditions of capillary inlet and outlet buffer were systematically optimized. Unlike the traditional chiral separation method, the buffers we used in the capillary inlet and outlet differed from each other in terms of buffer pH, ionic strength, type of BGE as well as buffer composition. Under the optimum conditions, baseline enantioseparation and highly sensitive detection of the enantiomers were achieved. Wide linear relationship of each enantiomer was achieved in the range of 5 x 10(-7) to 2 x 10(-5) mol/L with relative coefficients of 0.996 and 0.997, respectively. The detection limits were estimated to be 8 x 10(-8) and 1.0 x 10(-7) mol/L (S/N = 3) for the enantiomers, respectively. In addition, a successful application of this new method to the chiral separation of the racemic drug in spiked plasma samples confirmed the validity and applicability of the chiral CE-ECL method.