Quantitative investigations on moving chelation boundary within a continuous EDTA-based sample sweeping system in capillary electrophoresis

Recently, the EDTA-based sweeping of metal ion that combines chelate formation and in-line sample pre-concentration was advanced. However, the moving chelation boundary (MCB) existing in the sweeping system has not been investigated for the quantitative illumination of the mechanism of metal ion sweeping yet. In this paper, the model of MCB was developed from the EDTA-based sweeping. The theoretical studies were performed for boundary movements and controllable sweeping of metal ion. The theoretical studies show that the sweeping system contains the MCB boundary and chelate boundary, and the difference between the MCB and chelate boundary velocities plays a key role in the stacking efficiency of metal ion. To demonstrate the validity of the theoretical conclusion, the experiments of continuous EDTA-based sweeping were performed with CE and a home-made apparatus of a large tube. The home-made apparatus consisted of a glass tube used for the run of continuous EDTA-based sweeping and two peristaltic pumps used for the supply of solution. The experimental results were in accordance with the theoretical conclusions above. The developed theory holds evident for significance for the mechanism of controllable stacking of metal ions in EDTA-based sweeping system in CE.