On-column indirect photothermal interference detection for capillary zone electrophoresis

An indirect photothermal interference detection method, which is based on the diffraction of a probe laser beam by a capillary tube, for detecting metal cations separated by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) is described. In this capillary photothermal interference detector, a 2 mW He-Ne probe laser is employed to provide the probe beam and an 18 mW He-Ne pump laser is used to supply the pump beam. Factors that contribute to the noise and signal in indirect photothermal interference detection in CZE, such as the noise from the scattered light caused by both the probe beam and the pump laser beam, and effects of the concentration of ethanol and NaCl on the separation efficiency, were studied. The effect of scattered light can be reduced effectively with the configuration constraints investigated for photothermal capillary absorption measurements. With Methylene Blue added to carrier electrolyte as an absorber, three typical metal cations (KI, CuII and AlIII) were separated using this system. For CuII, a 2.1 x 10(-7) mol l-1 concentration detection limit (S/N = 2) without preconcentration and a 1.02 x 10(-17) mol detection limit as absolute amount were measured, considering the optical sampling volume estimated to be 50 pl, and 1.99 x 10(6) theoretical plates were observed on the laboratory-made CE system. It was demonstrated that indirect photothermal interference detection is suitable for small capillaries and a large ionic strength range for CE analysis.