Optimisation of selectivity in the separation of aromatic amino acid enantiomers using sulfated β-cyclodextrin and dextran sulfate as pseudostationary phases

Control of selectivity in the enantiomeric separation of three aromatic amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan) was demonstrated utilising two separate electrolyte additives. Sulfated-β-cyclodextrin (s-β-CD) was chosen as the chiral selector while the addition of dextran sulfate provided a means with which to predictably fine-tune separation selectivity. The two additives were found to interact independently with the amino acids, with the s-CD providing chiral interactions while the dextran sulfate provided ion-exchange (IE) interactions. The system was also very robust with reproducibility of migration times being < 2.0% RSD between runs and < 2.6% on using a new capillary. A physical model derived from first principles was also successfully used to describe the two additive system. The model accurately described the observed separations over the range of 0-20 mM s-β-CD and 0-1% dextran sulfate with a correlation coefficient of 0.998 between predicted and observed mobilities. The physical model also provided useful information about the system including association constants between the analytes and the pseudostationary phases, together with the mobilities of the associated complexes (analyte-cyclodextrin and analyte-dextran sulfate). Selectivity optimisation was achieved using the normalised resolution product and minimum resolution criteria. The physical model also allowed a desired separation selectivity to be obtained, such that experimental conditions could be predicted to lead to a particular migration order.