Design and evaluation of a new capillary electrochromatography system

A new computer-controlled capillary electrochromatography (CEC) system was built. Up to +/- 60 kV can be used for CEC separation, and buffer vials can be pressurized to prevent bubble formation and to facilitate conditioning and rinsing of columns. This CEC system is compact and flexible. Short columns can be used to achieve fast separations. A fiber optic detection assembly is used to separate the main body of the UV detector from the high potential to prevent potential discharge and disturbance of the UV absorbance signal. This system was evaluated by separating 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on different types of octadecyl silane (ODS) particles. Over 200,000 plates/m (k = 4.4) were obtained using 1.5 microm ODS particles. Voltage programming was used to reduce the analysis time by nearly 50%.