Capillary Zone Electrophoresis Studies of Sulfur Containing Compounds
Up to this point in time, complex mixtures of tertiary sulfonium ions have been separated or analyzed employing conventional methods like HPLC or NMR procedures. In this thesis the researcher presents a new approach, the use of Capillary Zone Electrophoresis (CZE) for the analysis of these types of ions as well as the closely related thiophenium ions. CZE offers an unprecedented advantage in that separations can be employed for speciation or quantitation of complex mixtures by using the appropriate standards or specific detectors. For the study, model sulfonium and thiophenium ions were used to determine the feasibility of the separation and to optimize conditions. Once conditions were established, a complex mixture of these ions isolated from a petroleum sample was analyzed. Furthermore, the chiral separation of sulfonium and thiophenium ions was explored using CZE. Again, it is for first time that CZE is used for the chiral analysis of these ions. The separation involves the use of a chiral resolving agent, in this case native or derivatized |3-cyclodextrins, added to the separation buffer. Differentiated interactions of the sulfonium ions with the cyclodextrin affords chiral recognition and thus separation. A final topic of study was the chiral analysis of O-methylated sulfoxides, (alkoxysulfonium ions) employing conditions analogous to those used for the chiral analysis of sulfonium ions.
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