Investigation of the enantioselectivity of tetramethylammonium L-hydroxyproline ionic liquid as a novel chiral ligand in ligand-exchange CE and ligand-exchange MEKC.

Chiral ionic liquids (ILs) have drawn more and more attention in separation science; however, only a few papers focused on the application of chiral ILs as chiral ligands in LE-CE. In this article, a novel amino acid ionic liquid (AAIL), tetramethylammonium L-hydroxyproline ([TMA][L-OH-Pro]), was first applied as a chiral ligand to evaluate its enantioselectivity towards several aromatic amino acids in ligand-exchange capillary electrophoresis (LE-CE) and ligand-exchange micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (LE-MEKC). In the LE-CE system, excellent separations were achieved for tryptophan (Rs = 3.03) and 3, 4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) (Rs = 4.35). Several parameters affecting the enantioseparation were systematically investigated, including AAIL concentration, type and concentration of central metal ion, buffer pH, as well as applied voltage. The optimum separation was obtained with 60 mM AAIL containing 30 mM Cu (II) at pH 4.5. Additionally, an LE-MEKC system was established to further study the enantioselectivity of [TMA][L-OH-Pro] towards selected analytes. As observed, the separations of the enantiomers of tryptophan, phenylalanine, and histidine were all improved compared to the LE-CE system. The results indicated that the application of AAILs as chiral ligands is a promising method in chiral separation science.