Separation and determination of the ingredients of a cold medicine by micellar electrokinetic chromatography with bile salts.

The separation of fourteen active ingredients used in a cold medicine was investigated by micellar electrokinetic chromatography (EKC) employing bile salts. Basic drugs were also successfully separated by micellar EKC using bile salts with high theoretical plate numbers (2.0 x 10(5)-3.5 x 10(5)) within a relatively short time (ca. 20 min). The separation of these solutes by micellar EKC was not successful using sodium dodecyl sulphate. The effects of micellar concentration, pH and organic modifier content on migration times and selectivity were investigated. This technique was also applied to the determination of several active ingredients combined in commercial preparations by an internal standard method.