Simultaneous separation of inorganic anions and cations by capillary zone electrophoresis

A new capillary electrophoretic approach for simultaneous separation of fast anions and cations is demonstrated. Indirect UV detection at 214 nm in conjunction with electromigration sampling from both ends of the capillary was developed. Two electrolyte systems based on imidazole-nitrate and copper(II)-ethylenediamine-nitrate were investigated for the simultaneous separation of chloride, sulphate, hydrocarbonate, potassium, ammonium, calcium, sodium and magnesium ions. Experimental parameters that were evaluated included a nature of UV chromophore, pH of electrolyte, a nature of complexing agent. The method permits the excellent separation of three anions and five cations in only 4 min using electrolyte system containing 2.5 mmol l⁻¹ Cu(NO₃)₂, 5 mmol l⁻¹ ethylenediamine and 1 mmol l⁻¹ fumaric acid at pH 8.5 adjusted with tetraethylammonium hydroxide.     

Light-emitting diode-based indirect fluorescence detection for simultaneous determination of anions and cations in capillary electrophoresis

This report presents simultaneous analysis of cations and anions by capillary electrophoresis (CE) in conjunction with indirect fluorescence detection using a blue light-emitting diode (LED), based on the displacement of fluorescein with anionic EDTA-metal complexes and anions. A new focusing system combined with a plastic lens and a 40x objective was developed and used effectively to focus the diverging beam of the LED on the capillary. The optimum compositions for simultaneous analysis of metal ions and anions are the samples prepared in 5 mM borate, pH 9.2, containing 2 mM EDTA and the background electrolytes (BGEs) consisting of 5 mM borate buffer, 5 microM fluorescein, and 1 microM NaCl at pH 9.2. Using this pre-capillary complexation method, the analysis of a sample containing five metal ions and eight anions was accomplished in 8 min, with the relative standard deviation values for the migration times less than 2.0%. The peak heights against the concentrations of the metal ions and anions are linear in 10-1000 and 50-2000 microM, with correlation coefficients better than 0.998, and 0.982, respectively. The limits of detection at a signal-to-noise ratio 3 of up to 14.6 microM for formate and as low as 3.7 microM for Ni2+. The results of the analyses of pond water and a Chinese herbal soup present the advantages of this method, including simplicity, rapidity, reproducibility, and low costs.     

Analysis of inorganic cations in honey by capillary zone electrophoresis with indirect UV detection

An indirect UV detection method based on capillary electrophoresis was developed to separate eleven metal cations completely, including alkali, alkaline earth and transition metal, which are related to evaluate the quality of honey. The background electrolyte contains 15 mmol/L chromophore imidazole, and acetic acid (pH = 3.7), which functioned as pH adjustor and complexing reagent. The selected cations can be completely separated within 8 min under hydrodynamic mode injection with a running voltage of 20 kV at 25°C. Limit of detection, linearity, reproducibility relative standard deviation of migration time and recoveries are in the range of 0.01-0.21 mg/L, 0.06-60.0 mg/L, 2.1-3.4% and 95.4-104.1%, respectively. The applicability of the method is shown by the analysis of honey samples, including a comparison with results of pretreatment and unpretreatment of eight samples. The results demonstrate that the developed method can conveniently be used in routine analysis of honey.     

New preconditioning strategy for the determination of inorganic anions with capillary zone electrophoresis using indirect UV detection

It is widely accepted that preconditioning procedures are indispensable in capillary electrophoresis in order to achieve reproducibility of migration times and peak areas. Several preconditioning strategies have been employed for electrophoretic determinations of inorganic anions using indirect UV detection including simple flushing with buffer or alkaline or acid pre-rinsing followed by flushing with electrolyte. We investigated the influence of various preconditioning strategies on the reproducibility of migration times and peak areas of inorganic anions. The electrolyte systems for indirect UV detection were based on pyromellitic acid and chromic acid respectively as UV absorbing probes and hexamethonium hydroxide as electroosmatic flow modifier. Preconditioning agents under investigation were electrolyte buffer, NaOH, HCl and the free acids of the UV absorbing probes. Investigations showed that reproducibility of migration times and peak areas can be significantly improved by acid pre-rinsing using the corresponding acid of the UV absorbing probes compared to preconditioning by flushing the capillary with buffer. In contrast to acid pre-rinsing using hydrochloric acid no interfering signals within the migration time window of inorganic anions under investigation can be observed. The optimized preconditioning procedure yields relative standard deviations of migration times less than 0.25% (n=10). Relative standard deviations of corrected peak areas were below 5% applying acid preconditioning using pyromellitic acid.     

Separation and determination of inorganic cations in beverages by capillary electrophoresis with indirect UV detection

A rapid, simple and reliable capillary electrophoresis method for the separation and quantitation of inorganic cations with indirect UV detection at 214 nm was developed. The electrolyte was: 12 mM imidazole as background absorbance provider; 5 mM malic acid and 1.0 mM 18-crown-6 ether as complexing agents; and 20% D₂O (v/v) to improve ion mobility. The pH was 4.25. The applied voltage was 22 kV at 22°C. Nine ions were completely separated and determined with correlation coefficients of 0.9979-0.9992. The relative standard deviations (RSD) were less than 0.5% for migration time and less than 5.2% for peak area (n=8). The detection limits (S/N=3) were from 0.08 mg L⁻¹ (for Na⁺) to 0.51 mg L⁻¹ (for Cu²⁺). To assess the reliability atomic absorption (AA) was also used to determine the same samples. Satisfactory results were obtained for real samples of jasmine tea drink and coconut milk.      

Simultaneous determination of inorganic anions, carboxylic and aromatic carboxylic acids by capillary zone electrophoresis with direct UV detection

Co-electroosmotic capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with direct UV detection was developed for simultaneous determination of inorganic anions, carboxylic and aromatic carboxylic acids. These solutes were separated using a 30 mM phosphate buffer containing 1.0 mM tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide (TTAB) and 20% (v/v) acetonitrile at pH of 6.5 and directly detected by UV at 190 nm. Calibration curves were linear in the range 0.01-2.0 mM, depending of the solutes. The detection limits ranged from 1.0 to 8.0 microM and the relative standards deviations (n=5) in range from 1.9 to 3.6% for the peak area. The proposed method was used to determine inorganic anions and carboxylic and aromatic acids in soil and plant tissue extracts.     

Simultaneous determination of selenium and antimony compounds by capillary electrophoresis with indirect fluorescence detection

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) with indirect fluorescence detection was used to analyze selenium (selenite, selenate, selenomethionine, and selenocystine) and antimony (antimonite and antimonate) compounds. The separation was achieved by CE in 6 min with a 1.2 mM fluorescein solution at pH 9.5. Fluorescein also functioned as a background fluorophore for the indirect detection of these nonfluorescent species. Linearity of more than two orders of magnitude was generally obtained. Precision of migration times and peak areas was less than 1.0% and 7.2%, respectively. The concentration limits of detection (CLODs) was in the microM range. The detection sensitivity was generally dependent upon the transfer ratio (TR, defined as the number of moles of fluorescein ions displaced by one mole of analyte ions) of each species.     

毛细管区带电泳法间接测定红细胞中的主要无机阳离子

建立了间接测定红细胞中主要无机阳离子的毛细管区带电泳方法, 考察了背景溶液pH、咪唑和酒石酸浓度等对无机离子分离效果及峰面积的影响. 以10 mmol/L咪唑-4 mmol/L酒石酸(pH 5.5)为背景, 在15 kV、214 nm的条件下, 对红细胞中K 、Mg2 、Ca2 和Zn2 进行了定性、定量分析, 回收率在96%～104%之间, 迁移时间和峰面积的相对标准偏差分别低于0.76%和2.8%(日内), 0.85%和3.7%(日间). 所建方法有望成为一种测定细胞内离子含量的辅助方法.     

Quantitative capillary zone electrophoresis of inorganic anions

Despite the availability of commercial capillary electrophoresis systems for over ten years, where quantitative analysis is required, capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) has often failed to replace ion chromatography as the method of choice for a large number of analytes, not least inorganic anions. To investigate the reasons for this apparent failing, a review is presented of work that has been carried out to-date involving the quantitative application of CZE to the determination of inorganic anions in industrial and environmental samples. This review summarizes work both investigating and improving the quantitative aspects of the CZE of inorganic anions. A complete survey of how CZE has been applied to the determination of inorganic anions in real samples is given, including what, if any, analytical performance parameters were investigated and quoted, and if quality assurance data and validation methods were briefly considered, thoroughly investigated or simply ignored.     

Simultaneous determination of inorganic anions and organic acids in amine solutions for sour gas treatment by capillary electrophoresis with indirect UV detection

A new CE method has been developed for the simultaneous determination of selected inorganic anions (bromide, chloride, thiosulfate, nitrite, nitrate, sulfate, thiocyanate, fluoride and phosphate) and organic acids (oxalic, malonic, formic, tartric, acetic, glycolic, propionic, butyric and cyclohexanoic) in amine solutions from sour gas treatment units. An electrolyte composed of 10 mM trimellitic acid, 200 mM Tris (pH 9.0), 0.1% polyvinyl alcohol provides a satisfactory separation of all analytes of interest. The electroosmotic flow is reversed by using hexadimethrine bromide as a semi-permanent positively charged coating, making the electrolyte free of additive. Indirect UV detection at 240 nm is used because of the weak absorbing properties of most of analytes. The addition of 1% diethanolamine in standard mixtures permits to better preserve them, inhibiting potential degradation processes, especially for thiosulfate. The quantification is performed using internal standardization, by which molybdate is used as internal standard. Moreover, the use of relative migration times and the excellent repeatabilities obtained allow unambiguous identification of analytes in real samples by comparison with standard mixture. It has been shown that no significant matrix effect came from the presence of 30% diethanolamine in amine solution samples and the developed method was characterized in terms of calibration linearity and accuracy using recovery tests. In short, the developed method allows the simultaneous and rapid determination, in difficult matrices, of numerous inorganic anions and organic acids characterized by a large range of electrophoretic mobilities.     

Simultaneous determination of inorganic and organic anions,alkali, alkaline earth and transition metal cations by capillary electrophoresis with contactless conductometric detection

Simultaneous separation of up to 22 inorganic and organic anions, alkali, alkaline earth and transition metal cations was achieved in less than 3 min in the capillary electrophoresis system with contactless conductometric detector. The sample was injected from both capillary ends (dual opposite end injection) and anionic and cationic species were detected in the center of the separation capillary. The parameters of the separation electrolyte, such as pH, concentration of the electrolyte, concentration of complexing agents and concentration of 18-crown-6 were studied. Best results were achieved with electrolytes consisting of 8 mM L-histidine, 2.8 mM 2-hydroxyisobutyric acid, 0.32 mM 18-crown-6 at pH 4.25 or 9 mM L-histidine, 4.6 mM lactic acid, 0.38 mM 18-crown-6 at pH 4.25. Other electrolytes containing complexing agents such as malic or tartaric acid at various concentrations could also be used. The detection limits achieved for most cations and anions were 7.5 - 62 micro gL(-1) except for Ba2+ (90 micro gL(-1)), Cd 2+, Cr 3+ and F- (125 micro gL(-1)), and fumarate (250 micro gL(-1)). The repeatability of migration times and peak areas was better than 0.4% and 5.9%, respectively. The developed method was applied for analysis of real samples, such as tap, rain, drainage and surface water samples, plant exudates, plant extracts and ore leachates.     

Enhancement of detection sensitivity for indirect photometric detection of anions and cations in capillary electrophoresis

This review focuses on the indirect photometric detection of anions and cations by capillary electrophoresis. Special emphasis has been placed on the sensitivity of the technique and approaches taken to enhance detection limits. Theoretical considerations and requirements have been discussed, including buffering, detection sensitivity, separation of cations, and detector linearity. A series of tables detailing highly absorbing probes and the conditions of their use for indirect photometric detection are included.     

Simultaneous separation of inorganic anions and cations using capillary electrophoresis with a movable contactless conductivity detector

A number of small inorganic anions and cations were separated after injection of the sample into both ends of a separation capillary. The ions were detected using a capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector (CCCCD) which could be placed at various positions along the capillary length. Counter-directional migration of anions and cations occurs towards the detector, which is placed at an appropriate position along the capillary so that the migration order is determined by the respective effective separation capillary lengths for both anions and cations. As the CCCCD detector can be easily moved to any position along the capillary, virtually any effective separation length can be attained. Depending on the number of analytes in the sample, one can choose to obtain either electropherograms with inter-migrating zones of cations and anions or separations with distinct regions of anion and cation zones, respectively. A new term 'apparent separation selectivity' is introduced to describe the manner in which the position of the detector can be varied in order to determine the final separation.     

Determination of anions with capillary electrophoresis and indirect ultraviolet detection

A method is validated for the determination of anions with capillary electrophoresis (CE) in combination with indirect UV detection. The method described here is used for the analysis of eight of the most common anions (fluoride, chloride, bromide, sulphate, nitrate, nitrite, thiosulphate and phosphate). Next, the method is compared with a another buffer system for the determination of anions with CE and indirect UV detection. Typical limits of detection are obtained between 1 and 3 mg/l for the above-mentioned compounds. The repeatability and reproducibility of the system differs per compound and is, with the exception of fluoride and phosphate, between 4 and 6% and 5–10%, respectively. Linearity was observed between 1 and 10 mg/l. The method is applied for the determination of anions in drinking water, serum and urine.     

离子液体为背景电解质的毛细管电泳-间接紫外检测法同时测定葡萄酒中无机阴离子和阳离子

以离子液体1-乙基-3-甲基咪唑对甲苯磺酸盐([EMIm]TS)为背景电解质,采用双端进样方式,实现了毛细管电泳-间接紫外检测法同时分析测定葡萄酒中无机阳离子(K⁺、Ca²⁺、Na⁺、Mg²⁺和Li⁺)和阴离子(Cl^-、SO■和ClO^-₃)。[EMIm]TS作为电泳缓冲溶液的同时,其阳离子和阴离子分别作为样品中阳离子和阴离子组分的间接紫外检测的背景电解质。在最佳分析条件下,可在6.5 min内完成8种无机离子的同时分离检测,其线性范围为0.005～0.7 g/L,相关系数为0.963～0.995,检出限(S/N=3)为1.2～12.5 mg/L。该方法成功测定了3种不同品牌的市售葡萄酒中8种无机离子。在3个加标水平下,8种无机离子的回收率为90.1%～110.5%,相对标准偏差(RSD)≤4.8%。结果表明,该方法可应用于葡萄酒中无机阴、阳离子的同时分离检测,且方法简单、快速且结果可靠。     

Determination of various inorganic anions and organic acids in the atmospheric particulate matter using capillary zone electrophoresis with indirect UV detection

Capillary zone electrophoresis with indirect UV detection was developed for the simultaneous analysis of inorganic anions and organic acids using a mixed solution of 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid and cetyltrimethylammonium hydroxide as the background electrolyte (BGE). The parameters which influence the separation, such as indirect UV detection wavelength, BGE conditions, applied voltage and extraction conditions were investigated. Thirteen inorganic anions and organic acids were detected within 20 min. The calibration curves of each analyte were linear with correlation coefficients greater than 0.991. The relative standard deviations (n = 10) of the peak areas ranged from 0.6% to 3.3%. The detection limits for these species ranged from 0.4 to 1.4 mg/L at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The recovery rate of each analyte was more than 80% under optimised extraction conditions, except for nitrite. The proposed method was applied towards the analysis of inorganic anions and organic acids in the atmospheric particulate matter using an Andersen sampler. The particle size of the particulate matter was determined, but not the size of the anions.     

Determination and prediction of transfer ratios for anions in capillary zone electrophoresis with indirect UV detection

Transfer ratios (i.e. the number of moles of the UV-absorbing probe anion displaced by one mole of analyte anion) were determined for the separation of inorganic and organic anions by capillary zone electrophoresis using indirect UV absorbance detection. When the electrolyte was buffered and contained only the probe anion and a single counter-cation, transfer ratios calculated from Kohlrausch theory were found to agree well with values obtained experimentally from accurately determined mobility data. However, these electrolyte systems gave long analysis times and were therefore considered impractical. More useful electrolytes were obtained by the addition of surfactants to suppress or reverse the electroosmotic flow but the co-anion introduced with the surfactant can reduce the value of the measured transfer ratio and hence adversely affect sensitivity. This problem was overcome by the use of a surfactant in the hydroxide from such as cetyltrimethylammonium hydroxide combined with a suitable buffering counter-cation such as protonated 1,3-bis[tris(hydroxymethyl)-methylamino]-propane or tris(hydroxymethyl)aminoethane. Four buffered electrolytes consisting of chromate, benzoate, phthalate, or trimellitate as probes and a suitable surfactant were used to determine transfer ratios. These systems were shown to give transfer ratios that were close to those calculated from Kohlrausch theory, thereby enabling prediction of experimental conditions giving maximum transfer ratios.     

Capillary electrophoresis of organic and inorganic cations with indirect UV detection

Summary The determination of alkali and alkaline earth metal ions by capillary electrophoresis using indirect UV detection is described. With the identical system it is also possible to determine short chain aliphatic amines and alkanol amines within 4 minutes. Indirect UV detection is achieved at 214 nm with a background electrolyte containing 5 mmol L^–1 imidazole. Linear calibration curves could be obtained for peak areas between 0.5 and 10 ppm. The detection limits are around 0.1 ppm (corresponding to 10 fmol in about 10 nL sample volume) for all cations and amines and 0.05 ppm for lithium. Practical applications demonstrate the applicability of this system in routine analysis.     

毛细管区带电泳-间接紫外法快速测定食品中的甜蜜素

建立了毛细管区带电泳-间接紫外法快速测定食品中甜蜜素的新方法。液体样品用超纯水稀释后直接进样;固体样品经粉碎或剪碎后用超纯水超声提取后离心,上清液直接进样或用水稀释后进样。以未涂敷石英毛细管（80 cm×75 μm,有效长度：70 cm）为分离柱,以2 mmol/L苯甲酸钠+10 mmol/L碳酸钠+0.5 mmol/L十六烷基三甲基溴化铵为分离缓冲液;于200 nm波长处检测。检出限为8.9 mg/kg （S/N=3）,定量限为26.7 mg/kg （S/N=9）。低、中、高添加水平的加标回收率分别为93.4%、100.3%及101.9%,相应的RSD分别为6.7%、2.0%及2.2%（n=5）。日内及日间精密度分别为2.6%和4.5%。整个分析过程无需有机溶剂。在能力验证样品的分析结果与国家标准方法的结果相吻合的基础上,分析了7件食品样品,获满意结果。