On-line coupling of miniaturized solid-phase extraction and microcolumn liquid-phase separations

On-line coupling of miniaturized solid-phase extraction methods and microcolumn separation techniques are reviewed. A conventional solid-phase micro-extraction device and fiber-in-tube solid-phase extraction was employed as the sample preparation method. In the fiber-in-tube technique, a novel fibrous polymeric material was introduced as the extraction medium for the microscale sample preparation step which could be directly coupled with microcolumn liquid-phase separation systems, such as microcolumn liquid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, and capillary electrochromatography. The applications of these hyphenated systems, consisting of the sample preparation and separation processes, are also reviewed.     

Miniaturized fiber-in-tube solid-phase extraction as the sample preconcentration method for microcolumn liquid-phase separations

Miniaturized fiber-in-tube solid-phase extraction (fiber-in-tube SPE) has been developed as a solventless sample preconcentration technique for microcolumn liquid-phase separation methods. Short capillaries packed with polymer filaments were employed as the extraction tube and the preconcentration power for phthalates in aqueous solutions was studied. On the basis of the successful on-line coupling of this preconcentration method with liquid chromatography (LC), a more miniaturized extraction cartridge, which is installed in the rotor of the micro-injector, has been developed. With a modified commercially available valve, on-line coupling of this sample preconcentration method to capillary electrochromatography (CEC) was also investigated.     

Miniaturized sample preparation and separation methods for environmental and drug analyses.

Miniaturized extraction and separation media have been successfully developed from precisely controlled technologies. In this article, recent developments in these high performance analytical methods, such as miniaturized sample preparation methods and the coupling of these techniques with microscale separation systems, have been reviewed, along with some applications to environmental and biological analysis. The advantage of the miniaturization is not only for the environmental compatibility but also for the developments of the high performance analytical systems. Down-sizing also makes it possible to investigate and introduce various compounds and materials as novel media (such as tailor-made materials and devices) in separation science. As a typical example of the novel miniaturized sample preparation system, the applications of fibrous materials for microcolumn liquid-phase separation methods are described.     

微柱液相色谱的研究进展

介绍了微柱液相色谱（μ-LC）。从理论上简单讨论了μ-LC的柱特性、色谱洗脱效应和柱外效应等一系列问题,综述了μ-LC的柱技术的最新进展,讨论了μ-LC对仪器和附件的要求,特别是微流量输液和检测技术,还探讨了μ-LC与多维色谱、质谱等技术的联用。     

Analytical potential of mid-infrared detection in capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography: a review

Literature published in the last decade concerning the use of mid-infrared spectrometry as a detection system in separation techniques employing a liquid mobile phase is reviewed. In addition to the continued use of isocratic liquid chromatographic (LC) techniques, advances in chemometric data evaluation techniques now allow the use of gradient techniques on a routine basis, thus significantly broadening the range of possible applications of LC-IR. The general trend towards miniaturized separation systems was also followed for mid-IR detection where two key developments are of special importance. Firstly, concerning on-line detection the advent of micro-fabricated flow-cells with inner volumes of only a few nL for transmission as well as attenuated total reflection measurements enabled on-line mid-IR detection in capillary LC and opened the path for the first successful realization of on-line mid-IR detection in capillary zone electrophoresis as well as micellar electrokinetic chromatography. Secondly, concerning off-line detection the use of micro-flow through dispensers now enables to concentrate eluting analytes on dried spots sized a few tens of micrometers, thus matching the dimensions for sensitive detection by mid-IR microscopy. Finally in an attempt to increase detection sensitivity of on-line mid-IR detection, mid-IR quantum cascade lasers have been used. Applications cover the field of food analysis, environmental analysis and the characterization of explosives among others. Best detection sensitivities for on-line and off-line detection have been achieved in miniaturized systems and are in the order of 50 ng and 2 ng on column, respectively.     

Miniaturized liquid core waveguide-based fluorimetric detection cell for capillary separation methods: application in CE of amino acids

A miniaturized post-column fluorimetric detection cell for capillary separation methods based on optical fibers and liquid core waveguides (LCWs) is described. The main part of the detection cell is a fused-silica capillary coated with Teflon AF serving as an LCW. The optical fibers are used both for coupling the excitation source with the detection domain in the LCW and for the axial fluorescence collection from the LCW end. The latter fiber is connected with a compact CCD spectrometer that serves for the rejection of the scattered excitation light and for the fluorescence signal detection. The proposed design offers a compact fluorescence detector for various microcolumn separation techniques without optical elements such as filters or objectives. Moreover, its construction and optical adjustment are very simple and the whole system is highly miniaturized. The function of the detection cell is demonstrated by CE of amino acids labelled by fluorescein-based tags. Separations of different standard amino acid mixtures and plasma samples are presented. The comparison of plasma amino acid levels of individuals being in good health with those of patients with inherited metabolic disorders is also shown.     

Controlling the retention in capillary LC with solvents, temperature, and electric fields

Once a suitable stationary phase and column dimensions have been selected, the retention in liquid chromatography (LC) is traditionally adjusted by controlling the mobile phase composition. Solvent gradients enable achievement of good separation selectivity while decreasing the separation time as compared to isocratic elution. Capillary columns allow use of other programming parameters, i.e. temperature and applied electric fields, in addition to solvent gradient elution. This paper presents a review of programmed separation techniques in miniaturized LC, including retention modeling and method transfer from the conventional to micro- and capillary scales. The impact of miniaturized instrumentation on retention and the limitations of capillary LC are discussed. Special attention is focused on the gradient dwell volume effects, which are more important in micro-LC techniques than in conventional analytical LC and may cause significant increase in the time of analysis, unless special instrumentation and (or) pre-column flow-splitting is used. The influence of temperature upon retention is also discussed, and applications where the temperature has been actively used for retention control in capillary LC are included together with the instrumentation utilized. Finally the possibilities of additional selectivity control by applying an electric field over a packed capillary LC column are discussed.     

Separation of fluorescent oligosaccharide derivatives by microcolumn techniques based on electrophoresis and liquid chromatography.

Various aldose oligosaccharides can be quantitatively derivatized into primary amines for subsequent reaction with fluorogenic reagents, such as 3-(4-carboxybenzoyl)-2-quinolinecarboxaldehyde or 3-benzoyl-2-naphthaldehyde. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) and microcolumn liquid chromatography (LC), coupled with laser-induced fluorescence detection, were evaluated as a means of separating complex oligosaccharide mixtures. Whereas microcolumn LC and open-tubular CE appear confined in their utility to relatively small oligosaccharides, unprecedented results were obtained with polyacrylamide gel-filled capillaries on hydrolyzed malto-oligosaccharides and enzymatically degraded samples of chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid.     

Fast liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray tandem mass spectrometry peptide sequencing for cross-species protein identification

Using a parallel microcolumn switching liquid chromatography set-up coupled to a quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer, a rapid liquid chromatography/mass spectrometric (LC/MS) protein identification method is presented. Without prior sample clean-up up to 300 protein digest samples a day can be processed. Using data-directed acquisition, up to 10 fragmentation analyses for each protein sample can be acquired in the same chromatographic run that can be used for database searching. Using internal peptide sequence information, protein databases and the various nucleic acid databases can both be queried for cross-species identification of the protein sample. The method was evaluated and put into force to generate data for a tobacco cell culture protein database.     

Advances of modern chromatographic and electrophoretic methods in separation and analysis of flavonoids

Flavonoids, one of the largest groups of secondary metabolites, are widespread in vegetable crops such as herbs, fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds and derived foods such as juices, wines, oils, etc. They receive considerable attention due to their biological and physiological importance. Hundreds of publications on the analysis of flavonoids have appeared over the past decade. Traditional and more advanced techniques have come to prominence for sample preparation, separation, detection, and identification. This review intends to provide an updated, concise overview on the recent development and trends of separation, identification and quantification for flavonoids by modern chromatographic and spectrophotometric analytical techniques, including gas chromatography (GC), liquid chromatography (LC), and capillary electrophoresis (CE). The sample preparation before analysis is also briefly summarized.     

Coupling liquid chromatography to Orbitrap mass spectrometry

The Orbitrap mass analyzer has become a mainstream mass spectrometry technique. In addition to providing a brief introduction to the Orbitrap technology and its continuing development, this article reviews the most recent publications quoting the use of the Orbitrap detection for a variety of chromatographic separation techniques. Its coupling to reversed-phase liquid chromatography (LC) represents undoubtedly the most ubiquitous approach to both small molecule and proteomic analyses. Multi-dimensional LC separations have an important role to play in the proteomics applications while an ultra-high-pressure LC is more frequently encountered in the area of metabolomics and metabolite analysis. Recently, special chromatographic techniques such as hydrophilic interaction chromatography and its variations have also been also cited with the Orbitrap detection.     

Analytical separation and detection methods for flavonoids

Flavonoids receive considerable attention in the literature, specifically because of their biological and physiological importance. This review focuses on separation and detection methods for flavonoids and their application to plants, food, drinks and biological fluids. The topics that will be discussed are sample treatment, column liquid chromatography (LC), but also methods such as gas chromatography (GC), capillary electrophoresis (CE) and thin-layer chromatography (TLC), various detection methods and structural characterization. Because of the increasing interest in structure elucidation of flavonoids, special attention will be devoted to the use of tandem-mass spectrometric (MS/MS) techniques for the characterization of several important sub-classes, and to the potential of combined diode-array UV (DAD UV), tandem-MS and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) detection for unambiguous identification. Emphasis will be on recent developments and trends.     

咪唑键合硅胶固定相微柱液相色谱分离酚类和胺类化合物

由于微柱液相色谱(μ-LC)具有高检测灵敏度、低溶剂消耗、可以与质谱等多种检测器联用的优点,近年来受到广泛关注。将咪唑键合硅胶固定相填充到毛细管中,在自制的微柱液相色谱系统下利用此键合相具有的弱疏水作用,采用不同的流动相对酚类和胺类化合物进行了分离。结果表明,流动相中只需添加少量的有机溶剂就可以实现对一些有机化合物的分离,甚至可以只用纯水作流动相就能分离一些弱疏水性化合物,如酚类。微柱液相色谱的流动相用量少,避免或大大减少了对环境的污染。自制微柱液相色谱系统为下一步微柱液相色谱-质谱联用奠定了一定的基础。     

Study on Retention in Liquid Chromatography

 After joining the faculty at Toyohashi University of Technology (TUT) in 1978, the author has found two areas in separation sciences where microcolumn liquid chromatography (micro LC) can be beneficial One is the hyphenated techniques between many spectroscopic methods such as mass (MS), infrared (FT IR) and atomic emission (ICP), and micro LC The other one is rather difficult, but basic and theoretical approach which deals with retention mechanism in LC.     

Capillary chromatography in the condensed mobile phases: From the concepts to analytically useful separations and measurements

Recent advances in microcolumn (capillary) Liquid chromatography and open tubular supercritical fluid chromatography are reviewed. New detection and ancillary techniques are emphasized. Further trends of capillary separations are briefly discussed.     

Solid-phase microextraction coupled with microcolumn liquid chromatography for the analysis of amitriptyline in human urine

Summary Solid-phase microextraction (SPME) is a solvent-free sample-preparation technique that enables isolation and pre-concentration of analytes from a sample on a thin film coating a fused-silica fiber. In this study SPME coupled with microcolumn liquid chromatography (micro LC) has been used for the determination of four tricyclic antidepressants (amitriptyline, imipramine, nortriptyline, and desipramine) in human urine. SPME conditions which affect extraction efficiency were optimized, and under the optimum conditions the system was a few hundred times more sensitive than direct LC analysis without SPME. For amitriptyline the detection limit was 3 ng mL⁻¹ and the calibration curve was linear in the range of 5–500 ng mL⁻¹. The SPME-micro LC method has been applied to the analysis of amitriptyline in patient’s urine.     

A review of pulsed electrochemical detection following liquid chromatography and capillary electrophoresis

Pulsed electrochemical detection (PED) has progressed as a highly sensitive and selective detection technique following aqueous-based separation systems over the past three decades. The application of on-line pulsed potential cleaning to electrocatalytic noble metal electrodes has significantly increased the number of applications formerly achieved with conventional electrochemical (EC) detection. Electrochemical cells are easily miniaturized, providing the ability to apply detection by PED at microelectrodes and onto microchips utilizing electrophoretic separations. In addition, recent advances in PED waveforms and instrumentation have enabled the detection technique to be easily coupled with high pressure separation systems which require rapid detection to maintain separation integrity. As a result, advanced applications for the determination of carbohydrates as well as the expansion of PED for the detection of other organic aliphatic compounds have been recently accomplished. This review will focus on developments and methods utilizing PED following liquid chromatography (LC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). Publications are reviewed in chronological order to emphasize the advancement of the detection method and the sustained relevance of its applications.     

芯片液相色谱技术进展

微型化是现代分析仪器发展的重要趋势.微型化液相色谱仪器在提供与常规尺度液相色谱相同甚至更高分离效率的同时,可以有效减少溶剂和样品的消耗;在液相色谱-质谱联用中,低流速进样可以有效提高质谱离子源的离子化效率,提高质谱检测效率;对于极微量样品的分离,微型化的液相色谱可以有效减少样品稀释;液相色谱的微型化还有利于液相色谱仪器...     

Indirect amperometric detection of underivatized amino acids in microcolumn liquid chromatography with carbon film based ring-disk electrodes

An indirect amperometric detection of underivatized amino acids has been developed using a carbon film based ring-disk electrode (CFBRDE) in microcolumn liquid chromatography (LC). Bromide present in the mobile phase could be efficiently oxidized to bromine at the upstream (disk) electrode, and was subsequently detected at the downstream (ring) electrode. Most of the underivatized amino acids that are electroinactive under conventional amperometric conditions react rapidly with the electrogenerated bromine, the concentration of amino acids can therefore be indirectly determined by continuously monitoring the reduction current of bromine. The signal monitored at the downstream electrode was largely dependent on the bromide concentration in the mobile phase. Under optimized conditions, the response linearly increased with the concentration for most of the amino acids over a concentration range of 1-100 microM, with a correlation coefficient of 0.990-0.993. The detection limits for most of the amino acids were below 1 microM (0.2 pmol). It was demonstrated that detection with a ring-disk electrode offers the advantages of achieving a much higher collection efficiency caused by a decrease in flow rate in the microcolumn LC.     

Recent and future developments of liquid chromatography in pesticide trace analysis

Until recently, the application of liquid chromatography (LC) in pesticide analysis was usually focused on groups of compounds or single compounds for which no suitable conditions were available for analysis with gas chromatography (GC). However, recent developments in both detection and column material technology show that LC significantly enlarged its scope in this field of analysis. Obviously, the most striking example is the rather abrupt transition of LC coupled to mass spectrometric detection (MS) from an experimental and scientifically fashionable technique to a robust, sensitive and selective detection mode rendering LC-MS being increasingly used in pesticide trace analysis. Other recent major developments originate from the innovation of new LC column packing materials, viz. immuno-affinity sorbents, restricted access medium materials and molecular imprinted polymers improving considerably the screening of polar pesticides by means of reversed-phase LC with UV detection. In this review the merits and perspectives of these important LC developments and their impact to current and future applications in pesticide trace analysis are presented and discussed.