Sheathless electrospray ionization interfaces for capillary electrophoresis–mass spectrometric detection: Advantages and limitations

A review of sheathless interfaces for capillary electrophoresis (CE)–mass spectrometry (MS) is presented. The review discusses the on-line CE–MS system requirements, advantages and weaknesses of current sheathless interface designs for CE–electrospray ionization MS, and comparison between sheath flow and sheathless interfaces. The advantages and limitations of three sheathless designs are discussed and commented upon, these include single-capillary, two-capillary and three-piece designs.