The work presented here demonstrates the incorporation of vinylbenzyl trimethylammonium (VBTA) as a novel positively charged achiral co-monomer to a glycidyl methacrylate-beta cyclodextrin (GMA/β-CD) based monolith, providing anion exchange sites with reversed electroosmotic flow (EOF) for capillary electrochromatography (CEC). The monolithic phases, GMA/β-CD-VBTA and GMA/β-CD (without co-monomer) were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, pressure drop/flow-rate curves and nitrogen adsorption analysis. After optimizing the stationary phase and mobile phase parameters, chiral separations of 41 pairs of structurally diverse anionic chiral analytes were compared individually using the GMA/β-CD-VBTA and GMA/β-CD monolithic columns. The GMA/β-CD-VBTA monolith chiral stationary phase separated significantly more acidic compounds compared to the GMA/β-CD column. To-date there has been limited work in the development of chiral monolithic column for CEC-mass spectrometry (MS). Because of good electrodriven flow characteristics, which allow the column to maintain a stable current in the absence of outlet vial, GMA/β-CD-VBTA column was successfully coupled to single quadrupole mass spectrometer for CEC-MS of several chiral test compounds. In addition, the same monolithic CEC column when coupled to a triple quadrupole MS instrument, two orders of magnitude higher sensitivity was observed compared to a single quadrupole MS instrument.

A novel procedure was developed for the fabrication of a fritless packed column for the coupling of capillary electrochromatography (CEC) to mass spectrometry (MS). The process involved the formation of internal tapers on two separate columns. Once the internal tapers are formed and the columns are packed, the untapered ends of each column were joined together by a commercially available connector. Several advantages of the fritless columns are described. First, the design used here eventually eliminates the need for any frits thus reducing the possibility of bubble formation seen with fritted packed columns. In addition, this is the first report in which the internal tapers are formed at both the inlet and outlet column ends making the fritless CEC–MS column more robust compared to only one report with externally tapered counterparts. Second, a comparison of internally tapered single frit packed CEC–MS (previously developed in our laboratory) column versus fritless CEC–MS column reported here shows that the latter provides better efficiency, suggesting no dead volume with equally good sensitivity and chiral resolution of (±)-aminoglutethimide. The fritless column procedure is universal and was used to prepare a series of columns with a variety of commercially available packing material (mixed mode strong cation exchange, SCX; mixed mode strong anion exchange, SAX; C-18) for the separation and MS detection of short chain non-chromophoric polar amines, long chain nonchromophic anionic surfactant as well as oligomers of non-chromophoric non-ionic surfactants, respectively. The fritless columns showed good intra-day repeatability and inter-day reproducibility of retention times, chiral and achiral resolutions and peak areas. Very satisfactory column-to-column and operator-to-operator reproducibility was demonstrated.Highlights► Novel fritless CEC–MS column made by joining 2 tapered columns with a union ► Fritless column has similar retention but better efficiency compared to single frit single tapered column. ► Column has excellent operator-to-operator and column-to-column repeatability. ► Column can be packed with chiral and achiral (anionic, cationic and non-ionic) stationary phases.

A surfactant-bound monolithic stationary phase based on the co-polymerization of 11-acrylamino-undecanoic acid (AAUA) is designed for capillary high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Using D-optimal design, the effect of the polymerization mixture (concentrations of monomer, crosslinker and porogens) on the chromatographic performance (resolution and analysis time) of the AAUA–EDMA monolithic column was evaluated. The polymerization mixture was optimized using three proteins as model test solutes. The D-optimal design indicates a strong dependence of chromatographic parameters on the concentration of porogens (1,4-butanediol and water) in the polymerization mixture. Optimized solutions for fast separation and high resolution separation, respectively, were obtained using the proposed multivariate optimization. Differences less than 6.8% between the predicted and the experimental values in terms of resolution and retention time indeed confirmed that the proposed approach is practical. Using the optimized column, fast separation of proteins could be obtained in 2.5 min, and a tryptic digest of myoglobin was successfully separated on the high resolution column. The physical properties (i.e., morphology, porosity and permeability) of the optimized monolithic column were thoroughly investigated. It appears that this surfactant-bound monolith may have a great potential as a new generation of capillary HPLC stationary phase.

The applications of polysaccharide phenyl carbamate derivatives as chiral stationary phases (CSPs) for capillary electrochromatography (CEC) are often hindered by longer retention times, especially using a normal-phase (NP) eluent due to very low electroosmotic flow (EOF). Therefore, in this study, we propose an approach for the aforementioned problems by introducing two new types of negatively charged sulfate and sulfonated groups for polysaccharide CSPs. These CSPs were utilized to pack CEC columns for enantioseparation with a NP eluent. Compared to conventional cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenyl carbamate) or CDMPC CSPs, the sulfated CDMPC CSP (sulfur content 4.25%, w/w) shortened the analysis time up to 50% but with a significant loss of enantiomeric resolution (∼60%). On the other hand, the sulfonated CDMPC CSP (sulfur content 1.76%, w/w) not only provided fast throughput but also maintained excellent resolving power. In addition, its synthesis is much more straightforward than the sulfated one. Furthermore, we studied several stationary phase parameters (CSP loading and silica gel pore size) and mobile phase parameters (including type of mobile phase and its composition) to evaluate the throughput and enantioselectivity. Using the optimized conditions, a chiral pool containing 66 analytes was screened to evaluate the enantioselectivity under three different mobile phase modes (i.e., NP, polar organic phase (POP) and reversed-phase (RP) eluents). Among these mobile phase modes, the RP mode showed the highest success rate, whereas some degree of complementary enantioselectivity was observed with NP and POP. Finally, the feasibility of applying this CSP for CEC–MS enantioseparation using internal tapered column was evaluated with NP, POP and RP eluents. In particular, the NP-CEC–MS provided significantly enhanced sensitivity when methanol was replaced with isopropanol in the sheath liquid. Using aminoglutethimide as model chiral analyte, all three modes of CEC–MS demonstrated excellent durability as well as excellent reproducibility of retention time and enantioselectivity.

A mixture of two molecular micelles polysodium N-undecenoxy carbonyl-l-leucinate, (poly-l-SUCL) and polysodium N-undecanoyl leucylvalinate, (poly-l-SULV) was utilized in micellar electrokinetic chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (MEKC-ESI-MS) to simultaneously separate and detect enantiomers of binaphthyl derivatives. Separation parameters such as background buffer composition, voltage, temperature, and nebulizer pressure were optimized using a multivariate central composite design (CCD). Baseline enantioseparation for both analytes was achieved. The CCD was also used in the optimization of sheath liquid and spray chamber parameters to achieve optimum ESI-MS response. The results demonstrate that CCD is a powerful tool for the optimization of MEKC-MS parameters and the response surface model analysis can provide in-depth statistical understandings of the significant factors required to achieve maximum enantioresolution and ESI-MS sensitivity.

This work focuses on the simultaneous analysis of β-blockers with multiple stereogenic centers using capillary electrochromatography–mass spectrometry (CEC–MS) with a vancomycin stationary phase. The critical mobile phase variables (composition of organic solvents, acid/base ratios) as well as column temperature and electric field strength, effecting enantioresolution and analysis time were first optimized sequentially. Next, to achieve global optimum a multivariate D-optimal design was used. Although multivariate approach did not improve enantioresolution any further, analysis time was significantly reduced. Under optimum CEC–MS conditions, all stereoisomers were resolved with resolution in the range 1.0–3.1 in less than 60 min with an average signal-to-noise (S/N) greater than 1000. The developed CEC–MS method has the potential to emerge as a screening method for analysis of multiple chiral compounds using a single protocol using the same column and mobile phase conditions, thus reducing the operation time and cost.