New pressure-assisted sweeping on-line preconcentration for highly polar environmentally relevant nitrosamines: Part 2. Cationic and anionic surfactants with zero-flow capillaries.

Abstract

We recently introduced a pressure-assisted sweeping-reversed migration-EKC (RM-EKC) method for preconcentration of neutral polar N-nitrosamines with low affinity for the micellar phase. The type of surfactant and phase ratio are dominant factors in dictating the magnitude of interactions between analyte and micellar phase, thus four surfactants (anionic and cationic) with a range of functionalities (SDS, ammonium perfluorooctanoate (APFO), bile salts, and cetyltrimethylammonium chloride (CTAC)) were evaluated for sweeping-RM-EKC of highly polar N-nitrosamines. All gave acceptable results for sweeping-RM-EKC when used in high concentrations (≥200 mM) with low EOF. While no single surfactant was superior by all measures, all but the bile salts had useful performance characteristics. APFO showed the narrowest peak widths and highest number of theoretical plates, though two species co-migrated at all concentrations (25-300 mM); SDS and the cationic surfactant CTAC also showed good separation characteristics and could resolve all peaks, but CTAC had wider separation window. Various types of capillaries coated for EOF control were compared for use with anionic and cationic surfactants. A commercial zero-EOF capillary coated with a polymer bearing sulfonic acid functional groups showed superior EOF suppression and reproducibility of migration time with all surfactants.