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30: Capillary Electrophoresis and Capillary Electrochromatography

  • Page ID
    333383
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    Electrophoresis is a class of separation techniques in which we separate analytes by their ability to move through a conductive medium—usually an aqueous buffer—in response to an applied electric field. In the absence of other effects, cations migrate toward the electric field’s negatively charged cathode. Cations with larger charge-to-size ratios—which favors ions of greater charge and of smaller size—migrate at a faster rate than larger cations with smaller charges. Anions migrate toward the positively charged anode and neutral species do not experience the electrical field and remain stationary. In this chapter we focus on the most important of these techniques, capillary electrophoresis and a few related variants.

    • 30.1: An Overview of Electrophoresis
      There are several forms of electrophoresis. In capillary electrophoresis the conducting buffer is retained within a capillary tube. The sample is injected into one end of the capillary tube, and as it migrates through the capillary the sample’s components separate and elute from the column at different times. The resulting electropherogram looks similar to a GC or an HPLC chromatogram, and provides both qualitative and quantitative information.
    • 30.2: Capillary Electrophoresis
      In capillary electrophoresis, electrophoretic mobility is the solute’s response to the applied electrical field in which cations move toward the negatively charged cathode, anions move toward the positively charged anode, and neutral species remain stationary. The other contribution to a solute’s migration is electroosmotic flow, which occurs when the buffer moves through the capillary in response to the applied electrical field.
    • 30.3: Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis
      There are several different forms of capillary electrophoresis, each of which has its particular advantages. Four of these methods are described briefly in this section: capillary zone electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography, capillary gel electrophoresis, and capillary electrochromatography.


    This page titled 30: Capillary Electrophoresis and Capillary Electrochromatography is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by David Harvey.