Capillary electrochromatography of Triton X-100

Nonionic surfactants such as Triton X-100 (TX-100) are comprised of a mixture of oligomers with a varying degree of length in the ethoxylate chain. The development of chromatographic methods for resolution of the various oligomers of TX-100 is of environmental importance, and can be useful for quality control and characterization in industrial manufacture. Capillary electrochromatography (CEC) is fast becoming a capable separation technique that combines the benefits of both high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and capillary electrophoresis (CE). This report presents a novel CEC method for separation of the various TX-100 oligomers. A comparison of monomeric vs. polymeric stationary phases for separation of TX-100 was conducted. Since the oligomers of TX-100 were better resolved on a monomeric phase as compared to polymeric phase, a systematic mobile phase tuning was performed utilizing a monomeric CEC-C-18-3 mum-100 Angstrom stationary phase. Various mobile phase parameters such as acetonitrile (ACN) content, Tris concentration, pH, voltage, and temperature were manipulated in order to achieve the optimum separation of oligomers in less than 30 min.