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Fluorinated ethylenepropylene copolymer as a potential capillary material in CE
Author(s) -
Evenhuis Christopher J.,
Yang WenChu,
Johns Cameron,
Macka Miroslav,
Haddad Paul R.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
electrophoresis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.666
H-Index - 158
eISSN - 1522-2683
pISSN - 0173-0835
DOI - 10.1002/elps.200700171
Subject(s) - capillary action , crystallinity , polymer , materials science , copolymer , capillary electrochromatography , electrolyte , coating , chemical engineering , analytical chemistry (journal) , composite material , chemistry , chromatography , electrode , engineering
In this work, a new generation UV‐transparent polymer, fluorinated ethylenepropylene copolymer (FEP) exhibiting a low degree of crystallinity, extruded in dimensions similar to the most commonly used CE capillaries of ∼80 μm id and about 360 μm od was investigated for its use as a CE capillary. FEP is transparent down to the low‐UV region, and as fluorinated polymers in general are good electrical insulators and exhibit reasonable heat conductivity, it has considerable potential as a material for electrodriven analysis in capillary or microchip formats. The FEP capillary has been characterised with regard to some important aspects for its use as a CE capillary, including its profile of EOF versus pH, as well as procedures for manipulating EOF by coating the inner capillary wall with various semipermanent and dynamic layers. The FEP capillaries were tested and compared with fused‐silica capillary for the separation of inorganic and small organic ions using conditions involving direct and indirect detection in the low‐UV region. Finally, advantages of the use of the FEP capillary for simultaneous detection of a mixture containing nine inorganic cations and anions using indirect photometric detection with a movable light‐emitting diode (LED) detector and a novel electrolyte are demonstrated.