Electrophoretic separations of twelve phenothiazines and N-demethyl derivatives by using capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic chromatography with non ionic surfactant.

We focused our work on the separation of phenothiazines that are important drugs used for the treatment of psychic diseases. For a better understanding of the metabolism of these solutes, we wanted to separate not only a mixture of 12 phenothiazines but also a mixture containing phenothiazines and their N-demethyl metabolites by capillary electrophoresis. Separations in capillary zone electrophoresis were performed using 3 x 10(-2) mol/L H3PO4 (pH 2.5) but the obtained resolutions were not entirely satisfactory especially with regard to phenothiazine -N-demethyl derivative pairs. To improve the obtained results, we have performed separations by using micellar electrokinetic chromatography. In this approach, we used a running electrolyte containing 3 x 10(-2) mol/L H3PO4 electrolyte (pH 2.5) and octaethylene glycol monododecyl ether (C12E8) as neutral surfactant. By introducing 2 x 10(-3) mol/L C12E8 in the electrolyte, 11 out of 12 phenothiazines have been baseline separated. With respect to the separation of a mixture containing 3 phenothiazines and their 3 demethyl derivatives, we obtained an excellent separation by using a running electrolyte prepared with 7.5 x 10(-4) mol/L C12E8 and 3 x 10(-2) mol/L H3PO4.