Nanoparticles in capillary electrophoresis what are the benefits?

Sammanfattning: Capillary electrophoresis is a technique that separate compounds based on charge and size. During the last two decades capillary electrophoresis (CE) and mass spectrometry (MS) has gained in interest, become more robust to use and able to separate neutral analytes. The separation of neutral analytes was first achieved with packed columns, but several disadvantages can be obtained with a stationary phase and the method of packing capillaries. Therefore, pseudostationary phases became a good alternative. The risk of clogging, memory effects and lower efficiency could be minimized with pseudophases. However, since mass spectrometry has become the most important analytical detector, and play a key role in the search for biomarkers in clinical applications, it is important that CE can successfully be combined with MS. To obtain this hyphenation several types of interfaces for the vital ion source exist. In paper I an atmospheric pressure photoionization interface was investigated in order to accomplish an improved detection sensitivity. The knowledge attained with this type of interface could then be transferred to the one used in paper II, the electrospray ionization interface (ESI), where the use of a MS friendly nanoparticle based pseudostationary phase was investigated. Both studies showed that it is still possible to improve the separation technique and modify the ion source in order to improve the detection sensitivity for capillary electrophoresis hyphenated with mass spectrometry.