[Enantiomeric separation of D, L-isoleucine in citric acid-zinc (Ⅱ) medium by capillary electrophoresis].

The enantiomeric separation of unmodified D,L-isoleucine was achieved in citric acid-zinc(Ⅱ) medium by capillary electrophoresis (CE) with contactless conductivity detector (CD). In the conventional chiral separation methods of amino acid, a chiral complex used as the chiral selector was added into the eluent in order to yield a chiral environment. However, in this study a non-chiral solution, i. e. 2.8 mmol/L NaOH+0.8 mmol/L citric acid+2.0 mmol/L zinc acetate was used as the running buffer, and the citric acid-zinc(Ⅱ) acted the role of a chiral selector. Under the optimum experimental conditions:uncoated fused-silica capillary (45 cm×50 μm, =40 cm), separation voltage of +13 kV, electrokinetic injection of 11 kV×8 s, the enantiomers of D,L-isoleucine were baseline separated within 8 min with the resolutions () of 2.0. The calibration curve of each enantiomer showed good linearity in the range from 1.0 mg/L to 20 mg/L, with the limits of detection of 0.40 mg/L. The intra-and inter-day precisions were examined. The RSDs of peak area and migration time were found to be below 5.0% and 2.5% (=6), respectively, indicating good repeatability (intra-day) and reproducibility (inter-day) of the method. Interference experiment was also tested. As a result, other common amino acids did not interfere with the detection. The proposed method provided a potential new way to further investigate the enantioseparation of unmodified or native amino acids.