Analysis of basic antimalarial drugs by CZE and MEKC. Part 1--Critical factors affecting separation

The separations of 11 antimalarial drugs and metabolites are shown by CZE at low pH and by MEKC at high pH. CZE is shown to be superior to MEKC in resolution capability for these compounds under the conditions examined. Both are shown to provide different selectivities to those obtained by ion-pair reversed-phase HPLC. The effect of sample injection solvent is examined in CZE and it is shown that field-amplified sample injection is effective for these compounds. In addition, it is shown that injection of sample in an organic solvent such as methanol augments the stacking of analytes resulting in lower detection limits. The limit of detection of some antimalarials in a urine matrix is reported.