Enantiomers separation by capillary electrochromatography

In recent years there has been a great interest in both analytical and preparative scale separation of chiral compounds mainly because two enantiomers, even if possessing similar structure and participating in biological processes, can interact differently. In some cases, this may also cause human health problems. Therefore the development of new methodologies, new instrumentation, and new stationary phases for enantiomers separation, are widely reported in the literature. Capillary electrochromatography (CEC), an electromigration microfluidic technique, has been successfully applied to the separation of enantiomers utilizing chiral stationary phases (CSPs) contained in a capillary column. In this review, the fundamental principles of CEC, its advantages, and disadvantages compared to conventional analytical techniques are briefly presented. The most applied CSPs are also discussed. Finally, some applications published in the last four years are reported. (c) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.