[Effects of ionic liquids on micellar microstructures and separation performance in micellar electrokinetic...

The effects of ionic liquids on micellar microstructures and separation performance in micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) were investigated. The experimental results showed that the addition of ionic liquids into micellar system would result in a decreased micellar surface charge density, an enlarged size of micelle and a slight enhancement of the polarity in the inner core of micelle. Prednisone, hydrocortisone and prednisolone were analyzed with MEKC to evaluate the separation performance. Hydrocortisone and prednisolone could not be separated in sodium lauryl sulfate (SDS) micellar system. However, the three analytes could be baseline separated in the mixed system of ionic liquids and SDS (20 mmol/L SDS-10 mmol/L 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium tetrafluoroborate-50 mmol/L borax, pH 8.4) within 17 min. Notably, the linearities of the three analytes ranged from 2 to 100 mg/L and the detection limits based on the ratio of signal to noise of 3 were 1.0, 1.1 and 1.0 mg/L for prednisone, hydrocortisone and prednisolone, respectively. The method has been used in the analysis of corticosteroids in cosmetic samples. The recoveries for the three analytes were between 95. 1% and 117%. This method has the advantages of simple pretreatment, high accuracy, good reproducibility, and can be applied to the quality control of cosmetics.