Electrophoretic mobility study on ion–ion interactions in an aqueous solution

Abstract

Ion–ion interactions between anions and their pairing ions in aqueous solutions were studied through the measurements of electrophoretic mobilities of analyte ions in capillary zone electrophoresis, where the electrophoretic method for the analysis of ion association reaction is shown to be more useful than the conductometric method widely used in the analysis of the reactions. The electrophoretic mobility of monovalent inorganic anions was almost identical even when the concentrations of alkali metal ions and quaternary ammonium ions in the migrating solution were varied up to 15 mM. On the other hand, the electrophoretic mobility of organic anions, such as monovalent and divalent anions, decreased with increasing concentrations of quaternary ammonium ions. Changes in the electrophoretic mobilities were analyzed by a non-linear least-squares method giving ion association constants. The results indicate that the proposed method is applicable to the analysis of such reactions to give the mobility change. The ion association constants obtained in an aqueous solution were related to the extraction constants of the ion associates, and the contributions of the association process and the distribution process were clarified.