Capillary electrophoretic analysis of cyclodextrins and determination of formation constants for inclusion complexes

Capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) methods with indirect absorbance detection for analyzing mixtures of alpha-, beta-, and gamma-cyclodextrins (CDs) and their derivatives have been developed. Benzylamine, salicylic, sorbic, or 1-naphthylacetic acid (NAA) was utilized as background electrolyte (BGE) and absorbance provider. Separation of alpha-, beta-, and gamma-CD could be achieved in less than 18 min when the CZE was run in 2 mM NAA or 5 mM sorbate solution (pH 12.2) and detected by indirect absorbance at 222 or 254 nm, respectively. Mixtures of alpha- and beta-CDs, and dimethyl- and trimethyl-derivatives of beta-CD could also be analyzed by CZE, using 50 mM salicylic acid or benzylamine solution (pH 6.0) as BGE with indirect absorbance detection at 230 and 210 nm, respectively. CZE methods for determining the inclusion complex formation constants of various CDs for salicylic acid or benzylamine with either direct or indirect absorbance detection have also been developed. The formation constants of salicylate are in the range from ca. 8 +/- 0.3 mole-1 for the complex with alpha-CD to ca. 99 +/- 2 molarity-1 for the complex with methyl-beta-CD. The detection limits (determined at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3) for the NAA and the salicylate system are ca. 0.1 mM and 1 mM, respectively.