Micellar electrokinetic chromatography of aromatic anions and non-ionic aromatic compounds with stepwise changes of the concentration of cetyltrimethylammonium chloride

Micellar electrokinetic chromatography in which the concentration of cetyltrimetylammmonium chloride (CTAC) was sequentially changed in the separation system was investigated using 10 aromatic anions and 11 non-ionic aromatic compounds as model analytes. All separations were performed in the absence of electroosmotic flow (EOF), and thus, analytes were detected in the order of their strength of interaction with micelles in the system. In isocratic elutions without EOF, the model analytes could be separated better with lower concentrations of CTAC but migration times of the analytes possessing relatively higher polarities increased markedly, and thus, long analysis times were required. Therefore, we attempted to increase the concentration of CTAC during a single measurement to reduce the analysis time without hindering the resultant separation of analytes obtained with lower concentrations. Briefly, the present surfactant stepwise elution can be performed by a sequential increase in CTAC concentrations of the running solution in the anodic reservoir from 30 to 50 mM for the anions and from 20 to 50 mM for the non-ionic compounds. Additionally, to perform expected gradient separations with good reproducibility, each running solution with a different CTAC concentration was treated with tetraethylammmonium chloride as an additive to adjust electric conductivities of each running solution to be equal. Under this condition, CTAC micelles of each zone of different CTAC concentrations would migrate with practically the same velocity. Consequently, by the present stepwise method, both the 10 anionic analytes and the 11 non-ionic analytes were well separated within reasonable periods which corresponded approximately to two-third and less than half of those by the isocratic elutions, respectively.