Mephedrone, a psychoactive compound derived from cathinone, is widely used as a designer drug. The determination of mephedrone and its metabolites is important for understanding its possible use in medicine. In this work, a method of capillary electrophoresis for the chiral separation of mephedrone and its metabolites was developed. Carboxymethylated β-cyclodextrin was selected as the most effective chiral selector from seven tested cyclodextrin derivates. Based on the simplex method, the optimal composition of the background electrolyte was determined: at pH 2.75 and 7.5 mmol·L-1 carboxymethylated β-cyclodextrin the highest total resolution of a mixture of analytes was achieved. For mephedrone and its metabolites, calibration curves were constructed in a calibration range from 0.2 to 5 mmol·L-1; limits of detection, limits of quantification, precision, and repeatability were calculated, and according to Mandel's fitting test, the linear calibration ranges were determined.

Department of Analytical Chemistry Faculty of Chemical Engineering University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technická 5 166 28 Prague 6 Czech Republic

Department of Chemistry of Natural Compounds Forensic Laboratory of Biologically Active Substances Faculty of Food and Biochemical Technology University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technická 5 166 28 Prague 6 Czech Republic

Department of Organic Chemistry Faculty of Chemical Technology University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technická 5 166 28 Prague 6 Czech Republic

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