Coupling electrophoretic separation with inductively coupled plasma spectroscopic detection: interfaces and applications from elemental speciation, metal–ligand interaction to indirect determination

Abstract

The knowledge of elemental speciation and interaction between elemental species and ligands (including biomolecules) can provide an understanding of their transport, transformation, bioavailability, metabolic pathways and toxicity in organisms. By taking advantage of the powerful separation capabilities of capillary electrophoresis (CE) in capillaries/microchannels, and the atomic specificity, multi-elemental characteristics and extremely high sensitivity of inductively coupled plasma spectrometries (ICPs), the CE-ICP hyphenation is one of the most preferred choices in elemental speciation and element–ligand/element–biomolecule interaction as well as the indirect determination of non-metallic compounds. This article provides an overview of electrophoresis in capillaries and microchannels coupled to an ICP with respect to interfaces and applications from elemental speciation, element–ligand interaction to indirect determination.