Objective: The aim of the study was to compare the influence of mobile phase composition and temperature on chiral separation of racemic ibuprofen by capillary electrophoresis and high performance liquid chromatography with UV detection.
Materials and methods: Racemic ibuprofen was analysed on a chiral OVM column with an HPLC system 1100 Agilent Technologies, under isocratic elution, by using potassium dihydrogen phosphate 20 mM and ethanol in mobile phase. The flow rate was set at 1 mL/min, UV detector at 220 nm and different column temperatures were tested. For electrophoresis separation an Agilent CE G1600AX Capillary Electrophoresis System system, with UV detection, was used. The electrophoresis analysis was performed at different pH values and temperatures, with phosphate buffer 25 mM and methyl-β-cyclodextrin as chiral selector.
Results: The chromatograhic analysis reveals a high influence of mobile phase pH on ibuprofen enantiomers separation. An elution with a mixture of potassium dihydrogen phosphate 20 mM pH=3 and ethanol, at 25ºC, allowed enantiomers separation with good resolution in less than 8 min.
Conclusions: The proposed HPLC method proved suitable for the separation of ibuprofen enantiomers with a good resolution, but the capillary electrophoresis tested parameters did not allow chiral discrimination.