Enantioseparation of dansyl amino acids by ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography using cationic β-cyclodextrins as chiral additives.

This work reports the application of ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) for reasonably fast enantiorecognition of some dansyl amino acids by employing three cationic β-cyclodextrins (β-CDs) as chiral additives. Good resolutions were obtained on an Agilent C18 column (2.1 mm i.d.; 1.8 μm; 50 mm length) with 1% (v/v) triethylammonium acetate buffered at pH 4.7 and acetonitrile as the mobile phase. Most of the analytes could be baseline resolved within 10 min. Increased cationic CD concentration or acetonitrile proportion in the mobile phase results in a decreased retention factor but accentuated selectivity. Furthermore, molecular mechanics calculation was performed and found to be consistent with the experimental results.