Microdialysis hollow fiber as a macromolecule trap for on-line coupling of solid phase microextraction and capillary electrophoresis

On-line coupling of solid phase microextraction (SPME) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) is highly desirable due to the apparent advantages of the two techniques particularly in the context of microanalysis. However, the hyphenation is a significant challenge, because of band broadening and analyte carryover caused by the slow kinetics of analyte desorption in liquid phase. A novel strategy was presented in this study to overcome these problems. Analytes desorbed from an SPME fiber, which was held by an adapter, were first transferred by electrophoretic migration into a short piece of microdialysis hollow fiber, which was located at the inlet of a CE system. Analytes with molecular weights greater than the molecular weight cut-off of the microdialysis material were trapped in the microdialysis hollow fiber due to the dialysis effect. Then, under another electric field with different electrode polarity, the analytes trapped in the microdialysis hollow fiber migrated into the separation capillary and were separated. In the coupling approach, the microdialysis hollow fiber functioned as a macromolecule trap and a sample pre-concentrator as well. Band broadening was eliminated because the initial sample volume was very small (at nL level). Meanwhile, analyte carryover was eliminated because the desorption time could be as long as needed. Coupling of SPME with CE including two modes, capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) and capillary isoelectric focusing (CIEF), was successfully demonstrated with proteins as test analytes. High efficiency and high resolution were obtained. The detection limits with UV absorbance whole-column imaging detection were 3.0 x 10(-7) and 3.0 x 10(-8) M (S/N = 3) for beta-lactoglobulin A and ovalbumin, respectively.