Separation of a range of cations by nonaqueous capillary electrophoresis using indirect and direct detection

The use of nonaqueous media and indirect detection is reported for the separation and detection of a range of small cations. The novel applications involved separation of a range of metal ions, small nonchromophoric amines, cationic ion-pair reagents and cationic surfactants. Separations were achieved using acidified methanol containing imidazole as the UV co-ion for indirect detection. The methods produced different selectivity compared to aqueous methods using acidified aqueous imidazole solutions. Advantages of the methods include speed of analysis and prevention of sample micellerisation. The methods were shown to be quantitative and reproducible by their application to the determination of Tris content.