Non-aqueous capillary electrophoresis separation of fullerenes and C60 fullerene derivatives

As the interest in the use of fullerene compounds in biomedical and cosmetic applications increases, so too does the need to develop methods for their determination and quantitation in such complex matrices. In this work, we studied the behavior of C60 and C70 fullerenes in non-aqueous capillary electrophoresis, as well as two C60 fullerene derivatives not previously reported by any electrophoretic method, N-methyl-fulleropyrrolidine and (1,2-methanofullerene C60)-61-carboxylic acid. The separation was performed using fused-silica capillaries with an I.D. of 50 μm and tetraalkylammonium salts, namely tetra-n-decylammonium bromide (200 mM) and tetraethylammonium bromide (40 mM), in a solvent mixture containing 6 % methanol and 10 % acetic acid in acetonitrile/chlorobenzene (1:1 v/v) as the background electrolyte. Detection limits, based on a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1, were calculated, and values between 1 and 3.7 mg/L were obtained. Good run-to-run and day-to-day precisions on concentration were achieved with relative standard deviation lower than 15 %. For the first time, an electrophoretic technique has been applied for the analysis of C60 fullerene in a commercial cosmetic cream. A standard addition method was used for quantitation, and the result was compared with that obtained by analyzing the same cream by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry.