Enantioseparation of cetirizine by sulfated-beta-cyclodextrin-mediated capillary electrophoresis.

A sulfated beta-cyclodextrin (sulfated beta-CD)-mediated capillary electrophoresis method is described for the enantioseparation of cetirizine using achiral cefazolin as an internal standard. The enantioseparation of the drug was performed in a borate buffer (5 mM, pH 8.7) with 1% sulfated beta-CD (w/v) as chiral selector at 10 kV. Several parameters affecting the separation were studied, including the pH and the concentration of borate buffer and chiral selector. Under optimized conditions, a baseline separation of two enantiomers was achieved in less than 7 min. Using cefazolin as an internal standard (IS), the linear range of the method for the determination of levocetirizine was over 1.0 to 50.0 microg/mL; the detection limit (signal-to-noise ratio = 3) of levocetirizine was 0.5 microg/mL. The method allowed the enantioseparation of cetirizine in bulk samples and enantiomeric purity evaluation of levocetirizine (R-enantiomer) in pharmaceutical tablets (Xyzal), and it was also found to be suitable for enantioseparation in human plasma.