Improving separation efficiency of capillary zone electrophoresis of tryptophan and phenylalanine with the transient moving chemical reaction boundary method.

A simple and convenient mode--moving chemical reaction boundary method-capillary zone electrophoresis (MCRBM-CZE)--was designed for the enhancement of separating efficiency of CZE. In this mode, the transient MCRBM is used for the on-line pre-treatment of sample. By analyses of tryptophan (Trp) and phenylalanine (Phe) as an example, the experiments by MCRBM-CZE were carried out and further compared with those by normal CZE without the transient MCRBM. The results reveal that by carefully selected appropriate electrolytes, a strong condensation effect can be achieved by using MCRBM-CZE; this effect can greatly improve the separation efficiency, resolution and peak height of Trp and Phe in CZE as compared with those of normal CZE of Trp and Phe. Even if the sample comprises high concentrations of salt, such as 80 mM NaCl (concentration of sodium ion up to 145.6 mM), the same condensation effect can also been observed; this implies obvious significance for biological samples like urine and serum. However, if the electrolytes was chosen inappropriately only a poor compression effect of sample was observed in the MCRBM-CZE runs.