Enantioseparation of several pharmaceutical racemates with capillary electrophoresis using L-glutamine as the chiral selector

A rapid separation method using L-glutamine as chiral selector was set up. Ten kinds of racemates, such as propranolol, mexiletine, propafenone, eprajinone, isoprenaline, ketamine, anisodamine, lobeline, bupivacaine, benzhexol ect. were successfully separated by choosing the best separating conditions. The use of borax and L-glutamine as buffer additive was found to be effective for the chiral separation. The pH of the background electrolyte and the concentrations of chiral selector and borax were optimized. In a solution containing 60 mmol/L L-glutamine and 60 mmol/L borax (pH = 9.25), the ten drugs were baseline separated in less than 11 minutes. The separating mechanism was also discussed