Properties and Applications of Mixed Packing Capillary Electrochromatography

Abstract

Mixed packing capillary electrochromatography (MP CEC) with the stationary phase comprising a physical mixture of strong cation exchange (SCX) phase and octadecysilyl (ODS) phase was developed. With the existence of a sulfonic acid group on the surface of SCX, not only could the electroosmotic flow (EOF) remain high at low pH, but also the hydrophilicity of the stationary phase was increased greatly, leading to broad adaptable ranges of both pH and organic modifier concentration in the mobile phase. At the same time, with the coexistence of C18 on the surface of ODS, both the retention and the resolution of samples were improved. Accordingly, MP CEC combined the advantages of both SCX and ODS columns. Effects of operation parameters on EOF and the capacity factors of solutes as well as the retention mechanism of such a column were studied systematically. In addition, MP CEC columns were used in the analysis of strong polar solutes as well as for the high speed separation of acidic, basic, and neutral compounds in a single run.