Dedicated to Professor Dieter Seebach on the occasion of his 65th birthday Two novel types of crown ether capped b-cyclodextrin (b-CD) bonded silica, namely, 4'-aminobenzo-Xcrown-Y (X 15, 18 and Y 5, 6, resp.) capped [3-(2-O-b-cyclodextrin)-2-hydroxypropoxy] propylsilylappended silica, have been prepared and used as stationary phases in capillary electrochromatography (CEC) to separate chiral compounds. The two stationary phases have a chiral selector with two recognition sites: crown ether and b-CD. They exhibit excellent enantioselectivity in CEC for a wide range of compounds. After inclusion of metal ions (Na or K ) from the running buffer into the crown ether units, the stationary phases become positively charged and can provide extra electrostatic interaction with ionizable solutes and enhance the dipolar interaction with polar neutral solutes. This enhances the host-guest interaction with the solute and improves chiral recognition and enantioselectivity. Due to the cooperation of the anchored b-CD and the crown ether, this kind of crown ether capped b-CD bonded phase shows better enantioselectivity than either b-CD-or crown ether bonded phases only. These new types of stationary phases have good potential for fast chiral separation with CEC.Introduction. ± Separation of enantiomers is one of the most active areas of chromatography [1 ± 3] and is important in various fields [4 ± 6], e.g., natural-product research, stereospecific synthesis, development of chiral drugs in the pharmaceutical industry, and in environmental studies. Chromatographic methods are typically employed for chiral separation, including high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) [7], gas chromatography (GC) [8], micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography (MECC) [9] and, more recently, capillary electrochromatography (CEC) [10]. To improve chiral separation, two approaches can be used: a) optimization of chromatographic conditions, and b) use of new chiral stationary phases (CSPs) or chiral additives in the mobile phase.GC and LC were the first tools to be employed in the separation of enantiomers [4]. However, conventional LC cannot utilize small particles and/or long columns to obtain high efficiencies because of the pressure limitations of normal pumping systems. Although GC usually offers higher efficiencies than LC due to the larger number of available theoretical plates, most chiral compounds of interest have low volatilities. This limits the use of GC for chiral separations [10]. During the last several years, capillary electrophoresis (CE) has become a powerful technique for chiral separations when chiral selectors are added to the running buffers [11]. CEC is a modern liquid chromatography technique combining the high efficiency of CE with the high selectivity usually obtained by HPLC [2]. The mobile phase is transported through a Helvetica Chimica Acta ± Vol. 85 (2002) 3283 capillary containing the stationary phase by means of electro-osmosis instead of pressure. Neutral solutes are separated by partitioning between the...