Recent development in capillary ion chromatography technology

This review summarizes the development of capillary ion chromatography (CIC) over approximately the last 5 years. It mainly focuses on the technologic aspects of several key components associated with CIC, including micropump, microscale electrodialytic eluent generator, microscale suppressor and the detector.      

A simplified ion exchange bead-based KOH electrodialytic generator for capillary ion chromatography

A simple potassium hydroxide electrodialytic generator (EDG) with singe membrane configuration is described. In this setup, one cation exchange resin (CER) bead is used to fabricate the EDG in place of the common membrane sheet. The device is implemented simply in a commercial stainless steel (SS) Tee which serves as both the EDG cartridge and the cathodic electrode. The present EDG has much lower internal volume (∼0.16 (L), which is well suited with capillary ion chromatography system. The device has been tested up pressures to 3200 psi and could be directly deployed on the high-pressure side of the pump. The electrolysis gas can be effectively removed by a segment of PTFE tubing. In the tested range of 0-100 mM, the KOH concentration is generated linearly with the applied current being near-Faradaic efficiency. The device permits both isocratic and gradient operation with good reproducibility, as demonstrated by the analysis of anions.     

Effect of suppressor current intensity on the determination of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid by suppressed conductivity ion chromatography

This paper presents the application of ion chromatography with electrolytic eluent generation and mobile phase suppression for the direct conductimetric detection of glyphosate and its degradation product aminomethylphosphonic acid (AMPA). The compounds were separated on a Dionex AS18 anion exchange column with a 12–40 mM KOH step gradient from 9 to 9.5 min. The effect of the suppressor current intensity on the electrostatic interaction of these amphoteric compounds with the suppressor cation exchange membranes was evaluated. A suppressor current gradient technique was proposed for the limitation of peak broadening and baseline noise, in order to improve method sensitivity and detectability. It was observed that residual sample carbonates co-eluted with AMPA when a large injection loop was installed for the low level determination of both compounds in natural waters. For this reason, glyphosate was isocratically eluted using 33 mM KOH in order to decrease analysis time within 10 min and a column clean up step using 100 mM KOH was used to ensure retention time reproducibility. The developed method was applied to the analysis of drinking and natural water and it was further successfully applied to orange samples with slight modifications. Instrumental LOD for glyphosate was 0.24 μg/L, while method LOD was 0.54 μg/L for spring waters and 0.01 mg/kg for oranges using a 1000 μL direct loop injection of the sample. Intra-day and inter-day precision (as %RSD) for water samples was 4.6% and 12% at a spiking level of 2 μg/L, and the recovery ranged from 64% to 88% depending on sample conductivity. For orange samples, the inter-day precision was 1.4% at a spiking level of 4.4 mg/kg, while overall recovery was 103%. The developed method is direct, fast, sensitive and relatively inexpensive, and could be used as an ideal fast screening tool for the monitoring of glyphosate residues in water and fruit samples.     

Controlled porosity monolithic material as permselective ion exchange membranes

Ion exchange membranes (IEMs) are used in a variety of analytical devices, including suppressors, eluent generators and other components used in ion chromatography. Such membranes are flexible and undergo substantial dimensional changes on hydration. Presently the push to miniaturization continues; a resurgent interest in open tubular ion chromatography requires microscale adaptation of these components. Incorporating IEMs in microscale devices is difficult. Although both macroporous and microporous ion exchange materials have been made for use as chromatographic packing, ion exchange material used as membranes are porous only on a molecular scale. Because such pores have vicinal ion exchange sites, ions of the same charge sign as those of the fixed sites are excluded from the IEMs. Monolithic polymers, including ion exchangers derived therefrom, are presently extensively used. When used in a separation column, such a monolithic structure contains an extensively connected porous network. We show here that by controlling the amount of porogen added during the synthesis of monolithic polymers derived from ethylene dimethacrylate – glycidyl methacrylate, which are converted to an anion exchanger by treatment with trimethylamine, it is possible to obtain rigid ion exchange polymers that behave like IEMs and allow only one charge type of ions to pass through, i.e., are permselective. We demonstrate successful open tubular cation chromatography suppressor performance.     

A multifunctional dual membrane electrodialytic eluent generator for capillary ion chromatography

A multifunctional electrodialytic generator (EDG) for capillary ion chromatography (CIC) is described. The same device can generate acidic, basic or saline eluents. Two oppositely charged ion exchange beads are used to fabricate the EDG; the dual ion exchanger configuration ensures the production of gas-free eluent, obviating the need of a gas removal device used with single ion exchanger EDG's. The ability of the same EDG to produce different eluents is governed solely by the choice of the respective feed solutions; this is presently demonstrated by generation of diverse eluents such as Na₂CO₃/NaHCO₃, CH₃SO₃H, and KNO₃. The EDG is implemented simply in a commercial cross fitting and has been tested up pressures to 2000 psi. Under typical operating conditions, the zero current concentration (open circuit penetration, OCP) is negligible. The generated eluent concentration linearly increases with applied current with a slope that is essentially Faradaic. The device permits both isocratic and gradient operation with good reproducibility, as demonstrated by the analysis of anions using HCO₃⁻/CO₃²⁻ EDG.     

Online preconcentration in capillary electrophoresis with contactless conductivity detection for sensitive determination of sorbic and benzoic acids in soy sauce

A sensitive method of online preconcentration followed by capillary electrophoresis with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C⁴D) is evaluated as a novel approach for the determination of benzoic acid and sorbic acid in soy sauce. The online preconcentration technique, namely field-enhanced sample injection, coupled with CE-C⁴D were successfully developed and optimized. In order to reduce the complex matrix interference resulting from the constituents of soy sauce, a suitable sample clean-up procedure was also investigated for real sample pretreatment. Under optimized conditions, sorbic acid and benzoic acid were well separated within 10 min, and the detection limits were 0.05 μM (5.6 μg L⁻¹) and 0.08 μM (9.8 μg L⁻¹), respectively. The accuracy was tested by spiking 10.0 mg L⁻¹ and 100.0 mg L⁻¹ of standards in the soy sauce samples, and the recoveries were 95-99%, respectively. Results of this study show a great potential for the proposed method as a tool for the fast screening of benzoic acid and sorbic acid in a complex matrix.     

An annular dual-membrane continuous cation exchanger packed with ion exchange resin

Design, construction details and performance characteristics are described for an annular perfluorosulfonate (Nafion) dual tubular membrane assembly where inside of the inner membrane tube and outside of the outer membrane tube are packed with ion exchange resin beads. During operation, the solution to be ion exchanged flows in the annular space between the two membrane tubes and a regenerant solution flows countercurrent to the principal flow, through the inner tube and outside the outer tube. With a principal channel hold up volume of ∼ 125 μl and capability of operation at head pressures up to 200 psi, the device can continuously exchange 200-250 μeq of Na⁺ per minute for H⁺. While this particular device was intended for use as a “suppressor” in anion chromatography, the design concept should be of utility in other membrane-based operations.     

Electrosonic spray ionization--an ideal interface for high-flow liquid chromatography applications

Electrosonic spray ionization (ESSI) has been studied as an interface between high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and mass spectrometry (MS), using sample flow rates up to 3.0 ml min⁻¹. This ionization interface was compared with pneumatically assisted electrospray ionization (ESI) using mass spectrometry for detection. For experiments that did not involve direct comparison of different flow rates, the ESI experiments were performed using post column splitting to work at optimal conditions. ESSI allows the interfacing of conventional or high-resolution liquid chromatography (LC) methods to mass spectrometry without post column splitting. High sample flow rates could be handled without a significant loss of signal intensity using a nebulization gas flow rate of 5.5 L min⁻¹. Since ESI needs to be operated with lower sample flow rates, it is limited to micro/nano LC systems, or post column splitting must be used. In particular, nano LC systems have to be treated with great care and require constant maintenance. When using post-column splitting, the increased diffusion can become a problem especially when using systems with very small void volumes. In all experiments ESSI showed better signal intensities than a commercially available, pneumatically assisted ESI source. ESSI does not require heating of the nebulizer gas, which should help to preserve the original structure of thermally unstable molecules. Therefore, ESSI is presented as an alternative to the commercially available heated ESI sources of AB SCIEX, Thermo Fischer, Agilent and Waters. The observed LC-ESSI-MS ion chromatograms are shown to be very stable even when using flow rates higher than 1.0 ml min⁻¹, which could be very suitable for ultra high performance LC, where sample flow rates up to 2.0 mL min⁻¹ with backpressures up to 1200 bar are used. Also, a difference in the relative intensities of singly and doubly protonated peptide monomers and dimers was observed between the two ionization methods. The coefficients of determination for the calibration of instrument response for Val–Tyr–Val and Met-Enkephalin showed excellent linearity over a wide concentration range (0.1–100 μM), while ESI results were only linear over a much smaller range (0.1–20 μM). The observed behavior is thought to be caused by insufficient ionization efficiency of solutions above ∼20 μM by ESI, exemplifying the robustness of ESSI as an interface between LC and MS.     

毛细管离子色谱分析系统研究进展

离子色谱是目前分析离子型样品的成熟技术,其水相工作介质的特点相对于液相色谱更适合于生物样品的分析。毛细管离子色谱(CIC)由于其节省样品的特点在生物分析方面的优势更为明显。CIC大体上可分为开管型、填充柱型和整体柱型3种类型。本文以填充型CIC几大关键部件技术发展为主线,综述了近年来CIC的研究进展。     

On the extra-column band-broadening contributions of modern, very high pressure liquid chromatographs using 2.1 mm I.D. columns packed with sub-2 μm particles

The efficiencies of two narrow bore columns (100 mm and 50 mm × 2.1 mm) packed with 1.7 μm totally porous BEH-C₁₈ particles were measured on two very high pressure liquid chromatographs (Acquity from Waters and 1290 Infinity HPLC System from Agilent) operating at maximum pressures of 1034 and 1200 bar, respectively. The probe compounds were a mixture of uracil, acetophenone, toluene, and naphthalene eluted in a 50/50 (v/v) solution of acetonitrile and water at 303 K with a flow rate of 0.40 mL/min. The apparent efficiencies of columns, which lumps the consequences of band broadening due to the column and the system contributions, may depend much on the extra-column volumes of the instruments used. Actually, it is known for a long time that the apparent column performance is strongly affected by the instrument characteristics, including the diameter of the connecting tubes, the injection technique (with or without needle seat capillary), and the detection cell volume. When the 1290 Infinity HPLC System is equipped with a needle seat, an inlet and an outlet connecting capillary tube with inner diameters around 115 μm, its extra-column variance for a 0.1 μL injection volume is 9.2 μL² while that of the Acquity instrument is 6.9 μL². Minor modifications suggested by their respective manufacturers allowed significant reductions of these variances, to 6.2 and 3.9 μL², respectively. Yet, in their optimized configurations and for weakly retained compounds (k ? 1), these modern, sophisticated instruments cannot provide more than 75% (1290 Infinity) and 85% (Acquity) of the maximum efficiency of a 2.1 mm × 50 mm BEH column. For more strongly retained compounds (k > 4), in contrast, they are both able to provide more than 95% of the maximum expected efficiency.     

Fast cation-exchange separation of proteins in a plastic microcapillary disc

A novel disposable adsorbent material for fast cation-exchange separation of proteins was developed based on plastic microcapillary films (MCFs). A MCF containing 19 parallel microcapillaries, each with a mean internal diameter of 142 μm, was prepared using a melt extrusion process from an ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH). The MCF was surface functionalised to produce a cation-exchange adsorbent (herein referred as MCF-EVOH-SP). The dynamic binding capacity of the new MCF-EVOH-SP material was experimentally determined by frontal analysis using pure protein solutions in a standard liquid chromatography instrument for a range of superficial flow velocities, u_LS = 5.5–27.7 cm s⁻¹. The mean dynamic binding capacity for hen-egg lysozyme was found to be approximately 100 μg for a 5 m length film, giving a ligand binding density of 413 ng cm⁻². The dynamic binding capacity did not vary significantly over the range of u_LS tested. The application of this novel material to subtractive chromatography was demonstrated for anionic BSA and cationic lysozyme at pH 7.2. The chromatographic separation of two cationic proteins, lysozyme and cytochrome-c, was also performed with a view to applying this technology to the analysis or purification of proteins. Future applications might include separation based on anion exchange and other modes of adsorption.     

Minimizing analyte electrolysis in an electrospray emitter

The electrospray (ES) ion source is a controlled-current electrolytic flow cell. Electrolytic reactions in the ES emitter capillary are continually ongoing to sustain the production of charged droplets and ultimately gas-phase ions from this device. Under certain circumstances, the analytes under study may be directly involved in these electrolytic processes. It is demonstrated that a simple means to minimize analyte electrolysis is to exchange the normal metal emitter capillary of commercial ES sources with one made of fused silica. This change is shown to provide an ES mass spectrometric system of similar performance in terms of gas-phase ion signal generated for non-electroactive analytes and also assures minimal oxidation of electroactive analytes even at low (2.0 microl x min(-1)) solution flow-rates and high (millimolar) solution electrolyte concentrations.     

Characterization of a 2.6 μm Kinetex porous shell hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography column in supercritical fluid chromatography with a comparison to 3 μm totally porous silica

The first systematic study of the performance of a porous shell, hydrophylic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) column in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) is presented. Observed efficiency on 2.6-μm porous shell particles exceeded all reports using UHPLC on 100-mm long columns packed with <2-μm totally porous particles. A Kinetex 4.6 × 150 mm, 2.6 μm HILIC column significantly outperformed a 3 μm Luna totally porous silica of the same length and diameter. A 17 component, low molecular weight test mix, consisting of a range of small drug-like molecules was separated isocratically on each column, with similar selectivity, but the porous shell column required ½ the time (≈2 min vs. 4 min), with almost 50% higher efficiency. Even little retained compounds (k < 0.5) exhibited more than 30,000 plates under some conditions. Reduced plate heights were higher than previously reported on porous shell particles in both HILIC and rHPLC, with the lowest value of 1.62. Significant fronting was sometimes observed. The cause of the fronting was not determined. The least symmetrical peaks showed the highest apparent efficiency. Pressure drop at optimum velocity (2.5 ml/min) and low modifier concentrations was <60 bar, and only exceeded 250 bar at near double optimum flow and 65% modifier. Peak widths were mostly just over 0.01 min (20 Hz) wide. There was a loss of efficiency when the injection volume was increased. The chromatograph was shown to have extremely low extra-column dispersion, on the order of 5–10 μL², which is also the lowest reported in an SFC, in spite of using standard components. This is likely due to turbulent flow in the tubing and fittings.     

System Design and Emerging Hardware Technology for Ion Chromatography

This review provides an overview of advances in system design for ion chromatography (IC), focusing on the suppressed conductivity detection mode. In particular, advances in automated mobile-phase generation and suppressor technology based on different electrolytic concepts are addressed and novel detection approaches are discussed. Finally, advances in multi-dimensional IC and aspects of miniaturization, including capillary IC instrumentation and chip-based IC, are discussed.     

Effective indirect enrichment and determination of nitrite ion in water and biological samples using ionic liquid-dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with high-performance liquid chromatography

An ionic liquid dispersive liquid–liquid microextraction high-performance liquid chromatography (IL-DLLME-HPLC) method for effective enrichment and determination of nitrite ion in water and biological samples was developed. The method was based on the reaction of nitrite ion with p-nitroaniline in the presence of diphenylamine in acid media and IL-DLLME of azo product. The optimization of reaction and extraction conditions, such as kind and concentration of acid, reaction time, volume of reaction solvent, temperature, kind of extraction and dispersive solvent, volume of extraction and dispersive solvent, addition of salt, extraction and centrifugal time were studied. Under the optimal conditions, 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium bis[(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl]imide IL-DLLME procedure provided high enrichment factor of 430 and good extraction recovery of 91.7% for nitrite ion. The linearity was observed in the range of 0.4–500.0 μg L⁻¹ with good correlation coefficient (r² = 0.9996). The relative standard deviations (RSDs) for five replicate measurements varied between 1.5% and 4.8%. The limit of detection of the method (S/N = 3) was 0.05 μg L⁻¹. The interference effect of some anions and cations was also tested. The developed method allowed achieving an excellent enrichment factor, yielding a lower LOD in comparison with other methods. Moreover, the proposed method was able to analyze nitrite ion in water and biological samples with satisfactory recovery ranged from 96.5% to 107.3%.     

离子色谱法检验血液中的亚硝酸盐

建立了使用离子色谱检验血液中亚硝酸盐含量的方法。血液样品经乙腈沉淀蛋白,过DionexOnGuardⅡRP,Ag/Na前处理柱后,经IonPacAS-19阴离子色谱柱分离,用KOH淋洗液自动发生器(EG)进行梯度淋洗,抑制器采用外加水模式,电导检测器检测。NO2-标准溶液的浓度在0.214～21.4mg/L时线性关系良好,线性方程为Y=0.0209X+0.5189,相关系数r2=0.9999,血中NO2-的检出限为0.39μg/L,回收率为96.5%～101.2%。检验方法快捷,操作简便,回收率高,重现性好,可满足案件需要。     

Capillary zone electrophoresis for U(VI) and short chain carboxylic acid sorption studies on silica and rutile

Capillary zone electrophoresis was used to study the uranyl and short chain carboxylic acid sorption on silica and rutile. The separation and the simultaneous determination (in a single run) of a number of short chain carboxylic acids (oxalic, formic, acetic and propionic) and U(VI) with direct UV detection is developed for the analysis of solutions after the sorption experiments. The reverse polarity mode is used (the injection is performed at the negative end). The matrix effect of Si(IV) (possible silica dissolution product) and perchlorate (added for constant ionic strength in sorption experiments) on the separation of U(VI) and organic acids is investigated. The influence of methanol addition in carrier electrolyte on the separation selectivity of given analytes is also studied. Under the chosen conditions (carbonate buffer (ionic strength of 0.1 M), pH 9.8, 0.15 mM of tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide, 25% (v/v) of methanol) the calibration curves are plotted. They are linear in two ranges of concentration from ∼1 × 10⁻⁵ to ∼1 × 10⁻³ M for oxalate, acetate, propionate, U(VI) and ∼1 × 10⁻⁴ to ∼1 × 10⁻³ for formate. The accuracy of the procedure is checked by the “added-found” method in simulation solutions. The relative standard deviations of the concentrations found are within the range of 1-10% and the recovery is in the range of 90-115%. This method is applied for the analysis of aqueous samples issued from sorption experiments on silica and rutile. The obtained results indicate that the given organic acids decrease uranium sorption both on silica and rutile. These experiments demonstrate that short chain carboxylic acids can influence the mobility and the chemistry of U(VI) in the environment.     

Selective on-line serum peptide extraction and multidimensional separation by coupling a restricted-access material-based capillary trap column with nanoliquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

As the serum peptidome gets increasing attention for biomarker discovery, one of the important issues is how to efficiently extract the peptides from highly complex human serum for peptidome analysis. Here we developed a fully automated platform for direct injection, on-line extraction, multidimensional separation and MS detection of peptides present in human serum. A capillary SPE column packed with a novel mix mode restricted access material (RAM) exhibiting strong cation exchange and size exclusion chromatography (SCX/SEC) properties were coupled with a nanoliquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (nanoLC-MS) system. The capillary SPE column excludes the high abundant serum proteins such as HSA by size exclusion chromatography and simultaneously extracts the low molecular weight peptides by binding to sulfonic acid residues. Subsequently, the trapped peptides are eluted to a capillary LC column packed with a RP-C18 stationary phase. After injection of only 2 μL human serum to the one-dimensional nanoLC-MS system around 400 peptides could be identified. When conducting a multidimensional separation, the described SCX/SEC/RP-MS platform allows the separation and identification of 1286 peptides present in human serum by the injection and on-line processing of 20 μL human serum sample.     

Chromatographic separation of neodymium isotopes by using chemical exchange process

The neodymium isotope effects were investigated in Nd–malate ligand exchange system using the highly porous cation exchange resin SQS-6. The temperature of the chromatographic columns was kept constant at 50 °C by temperature controlled water passed through the columns jackets. The separation coefficient of neodymium isotopes, ?’s, was calculated from the isotopic ratios precisely measured by means of an ICP mass spectrometer equipped with nine collectors as ion detectors. The separation coefficient, ? × 10⁵, were calculated and found to be 1.4, 4.8, 5.4, 10.6, 16.8 and 20.2 for ¹⁴³Nd, ¹⁴⁴Nd, ¹⁴⁵Nd, ¹⁴⁶Nd, ¹⁴⁸Nd and ¹⁵⁰Nd, respectively.