Capillary electrophoresis for pharmaceutical analysis

The use of capillary electrophoresis (CE) as an analytical technique has become more widespread and popular in recent years and has established itself as a method of choice for many applications. The ability to analyze small ions and organic molecules has made it the mainstay in many industries such as the food and beverage, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical industries, many of which have incorporated CE into their research as well as their quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) departments. Pharmaceutical analysis is dominated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with thin layer chromatography (TLC) and gas chromatography (GC) also used to a lesser extent, as their quantitative abilities are not widespread as HPLC. CE, however, is becoming a more widely used technique and is recognized by several regulatory authorities as a reliable routine analytical technique. Although CE was initially heralded for its high speed and low sample volume, resolving power, and versatility, the technique is also valuable because it is quantitative, can be automated, and can separate compounds that have been traditionally difficult to handle by HPLC. Qualitative analysis is also possible by capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS).