A voltage trade study for the design of capillary electrophoresis instruments for spaceflight |
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Authors: | Mauro S. Ferreira Santos Emily Kurfman Konstantin Zamuruyev Aaron C. Noell Maria F. Mora Peter A. Willis |
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Affiliation: | 1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA;2. Department of Chemistry, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA |
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Abstract: | Capillary electrophoresis (CE) systems have undergone extensive development for spaceflight applications. A flight-compatible high voltage power supply and the necessary voltage isolation for other energized components can be large contributors to both the volume and mass of a CE system, especially if typical high voltage levels of 25–30 kV are used. Here, we took advantage of our custom CE hardware to perform a trade study for simultaneous optimization of capillary length, high voltage level, and separation time, without sacrificing method performance. A capillary electrophoresis with capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection (CE-C4D) method recently developed by our group to target inorganic cations and amino acids relevant to astrobiology was used as a test case. The results indicate that a 50 cm long capillary with 15 kV applied voltage (half of that used in the original method) can be used to achieve measurement goals while minimizing instrument size. |
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Keywords: | capillary electrophoresis contactless conductivity detection high-voltage power supply in situ analysis spaceflight instruments |
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