A novel, post-column micro-membrane reactor for fluorescent analysis of protein in capillary electrophoresis

Based on the semipermeability of hollow fiber membranes, a post-column membrane reactor was developed for capillary electrophoresis (CE)-laser induced fluorescence (LIF) analysis of proteins by using a hollow fiber membrane to connect the separation and detection capillaries. The membrane length between the separation and detection capillaries was 1 mm. Driven by the chemical potential difference between the separation buffer inside the membrane and the fluorescence derivatization solution outside the membrane, the derivatization reagent can be easily drawn into hollow fiber membrane to react with proteins. Also, the separation buffer can be adjusted by the derivatization solution to match the conditions of derivatization without sample loss. The effect of the separation buffer on the derivatization reaction was investigated and the results showed that even a strong acidic solution and multiple additives can be adopted in the separation buffer without destroying the post-column derivatization of proteins. Under the optimized conditions, the highly sensitive detection of BSA was achieved with a detection limit of 3.3 nmol L(-1) and a linear calibration range from 0.007 to 0.1 mg mL(-1). The proposed CE-LIF system with a post-column membrane reactor was also successfully applied to the separation and detection of proteins in rat liver and loach muscle.