A decade of capillary electrophoresis

Since the introduction of the first commercial capillary electrophoresis (CE) instrument a decade ago, CE applications have become widespread. Today, CE is a versatile analytical technique which is successfully used for the separation of small ions, neutral molecules, and large biomolecules and for the study of physicochemical parameters. It is being utilized in widely different fields, such as analytical chemistry, forensic chemistry, clinical chemistry, organic chemistry, natural products, pharmaceutical industry, chiral separations, molecular biology, and others. It is not only used as a separation technique but to answer physicochemical questions. In this review, we will discuss different modes of CE such as capillary zone electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, capillary gel electrophoresis, capillary isoelectric focusing, and capillary electrochromatography, and will comment on the future direction of CE, including array capillary electrophoresis and array microchip separations.