Editorial Enantioseparations 2021

Abstract

This special issue of ELECTROPHORESIS on enantioseparations covers current developments in this field. Moreover, when working on this issue, we had the opportunity to understand where this area of research is heading, where the problems are, and on what issues the future research should be focused in our opinion. Thus, we had to reject quite a number of manuscripts dealing with not well characterized and weak chiral selectors, about open tubular capillary electrochromatography, as well as on unsuccessful attempts to model selector–selectand interactions. As a result of the rigorous manuscript evaluation process, none of the submitted manuscripts on electrochromatography qualified to be accepted for publication. Perhaps the research activity, especially in packed capillary electrochromatography, is decreasing, although in our personal opinion, this technique has high potential for solving increasingly complex separation problems. There were also not sufficient innovations in lab-on-a-chip applications to enantioseparations, as well as manuscripts addressing the potential of chiral electromigration techniques to real problem solving in pharmaceutical, biomedical, food and environmental analysis. The issue opens with a review paper summarizing properties of the most widely used chiral CE selectors, cyclodextrins, emphasizing the mechanistic and modeling aspects (by P. Peluso and B. Chankvetadze). This is followed by the review articles on recent applications of chiral CE to pharmaceutical analysis (by G.K.E. Scriba and co-workers), on the application of experimental designs to chiral electromigration techniques (by A. de Oliveira and co-authors), bioanalysis (by W. Thormann and J. Caslavska), as well as on enantioseparation of chiral proton pump inhibitors with various liquid-phase separation techniques (by L.A. Papp et al.). This is followed by 5 research papers on various applications of chiral CE, as well as one paper on the modelling of selector– selectand interaction in the dual selector system. The issue concludes with 3 research papers on enantioseparations in high-performance liquid chromatography. I would like to express my thanks to the Editors-in-Chief of ELECTROPHORESIS, Professors Blanca Lapizco-Encinas and HermannWätzig, as well as the journal publisher, for supporting this special issue and for pleasant and efficient co-operation. My special thanks go also to all authors for submitting their high-quality works for publication in this issue and to all reviewers for their time, efforts and competent comments. I sincerely hope that this special issue of ELECTROPHORESIS will contribute to a further advancement of our knowledge and motivate us for new scientific achievements in this field.