A simple fabrication method for tapered capillary tip and its applications in high-speed CE and ESI-MS

Fabrication of capillaries with tapered tips is an important technique that is required in many analytical chemistry areas, such as ESI-MS, CE, electrochemical analysis, and microinjection. This paper describes a simple and effective grinding-based fabrication method for capillaries with tapered tips. A novel grinding mode utilizing the combination of rotation and precession of an elastic capillary was developed, which significantly improved the controllability to the grinding process as well as the capillary tip shape. The capillary was fabricated by fixing it in an electric drill installed perpendicularly, and grind the capillary tip rotated around its own axis as well as the drill axis on sandpapers. Compared with conventional fabrication techniques for capillary tips, the present method is easy to control the capillary tip shape in routine laboratories without the requirement of expensive equipments or poisonous reagent (e.g. hydrofluoric acid (HF) solution). Various capillaries with different tip diameters and tip taper angles could be fabricated using the present method with good controllability and reproducibility. These capillaries were applied in high-speed CE and ESI-MS analysis to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of this fabrication method.