Recent developments in open tubular capillary electrochromatography from 2016 to 2017

Interest in open‐tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT‐CEC) continues to thrive because of the inherent advantage of OT‐CEC combining the high efficiency of capillary electrophoresis and the high selectivity of high performance liquid chromatography. For the period 2016 to 2017, novel materials have been developed as first‐time stationary phases for OT‐CEC and are grouped in this review as polymer‐based materials, frameworks, nanoparticles, graphene‐based materials, and biomaterials. Coating and fabrication methods mostly rely on covalent coating strategies while non‐covalent immobilisation strategies like electrostatic assembly are notably still being employed. The concern of overcoming phase ratio challenges in OT‐CEC coatings have also generated adoption of combined coating strategies including multi‐layering, layer‐by‐layer self‐assembly and methods adapted from nanofilm fabrications like epitaxial growth, liquid phase deposition, or nucleation of crystal growth. The emergence of non‐conventional coating characterisation methods such as transmission electron microscopy, X‐ray diffraction or X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy is also discussed.