Investigation of the synergistic effect with chiral D-penicillamine functionalized gold nanoparticle as an additive for enantiomeric separation in capillary electrophoresis.

The authors describe a synergistic system for nanoparticle based chiral separation. It is based on the use of a conventional chiral selector hydroxyproyl-β-cyclodextrin and a kind of gold nanoparticle functionalized with D-penicillamine as an additive. This nanomaterial displays a synergistic effect on the efficiency of the enantioseparation of the chiral drugs amlodipine, tropicamide, and ofloxacin. A comparative study on the enantioseparation capability of three separation systems, viz. (a) single hydroxyproyl-β-cyclodextrin system, (b) achiral citrate capped gold nanoparticle/ hydroxyproyl-β-cyclodextrin system, and (c) chiral D-penicillamine functionalized gold nanoparticle/ hydroxyproyl-β-cyclodextrin system was performed. The results show that the D-penicillamine functionalized gold nanoparticle/hydroxyproyl-β-cyclodextrin synergistic system has remarkable superiority. The effects of concentrations of D-penicillamine functionalized gold nanoparticle and hydroxyproyl-β-cyclodextrin, of buffer pH value and concentration, and of applied voltage on the performance of enantioseparation were investigated.