Chiral separation of underivatized and dansyl amino acids by ligand-exchange micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography using a copper(II)-L-valine complex as selector.

Ligand-exchange micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography was used for the chiral resolution of underivatized and dansyl amino acid enantiomers simultaneously. The separation was achieved by chiral copper(II)-L-valine complexes incorporated in micelles of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). The enantioresolution was strongly affected by SDS and a concentration of 20 mM SDS was shown to be necessary for the separation. Other impacting factors were investigated including pH, the molar ratio of copper(II) to L-valine and the total concentration of complex. Using the proposed method, 11 different dansyl amino acids and two underivatized amino acids were separated successfully with a running electrolyte of 20 mM NH4OAc, 4 mM CuSO4, 8 mM L-valine and 20 mM SDS at pH 9.0 in less than 25 min. Experiments were also performed with other amino acid ligands in order to vary the stability and the sterical arrangement of the copper(II) complexes and the possible chiral recognition mechanism was also discussed briefly.