Design of movable contactless conductivity detector for microchip capillary electrophoresis

In this paper a novel detecting device based on movable contactless conductivity detector was described. The stainless steel mould replaces the silicon and nickel mould to fabricate the capillary electrophoresis chip and overcome the disadvantage of complicated technology and frangibility. The parameters of hot embossing were optimized. In the paper a sandwich electrode structure was proposed. The electrode structure can minimize the stray capacitive direct coupling between the electrodes. The analytical performance of the detector based on the USB detection system was demonstrated by the detection of alkali metal ions. Detection limits ranging from 20 down to 5 mum were obtained.