Wide-bore capillary hydrodynamic chromatography with ICP-MS detection for evaluation of lanthanide uptake by molecular aggregates

Wide-bore capillary hydrodynamic chromatography (W-HDC) resolves analytes on the basis of a difference in the extent of radial diffusion simply by their passage through an empty capillary. The combination of this method with ICP-MS proves efficient for the evaluation of the interaction of metal ions with molecular aggregates. Lecithin vesicles are suitable molecular aggregates for the uptake of the lanthanide ions in the presence of the first row transition metal ions, suggesting that the present method is applicable to the screening of the molecular aggregate system suitable for selective extraction of a particular targeted small molecule. The visual inspection of the elution profiles gives us qualitative but useful information on the interaction between the vesicle and metal ions. In addition, studying the slope of the front edge of an elution curve provides more quantitative implications.