Calibrationless quantitative analysis by indirect UV absorbance detection in capillary zone electrophoresis: The concept of the conversion factor

A new, fast and efficient procedure is described for the simultaneous quantitative analysis of various non-UV absorbing species in a sample, by capillary zone electrophoresis with indirect UV absorbance detection. The procedure is based on the concept of the conversion factor (CF). The CF of an analyte is defined as the ratio of the measured temporal peak area and the product of its migration time and transfer ratio (TR). Thus defined, the CF is of general validity for all analytes separated and detected in a given background electrolyte (BGE), since it has the same value for the same amounts of various analytes. If a sample is enriched with a known concentration of a standard component and analyzed by CZE, the CF of this standard component can be calculated and then the concentrations of all other analytes can be determined, without the use of any calibration graph. The individual TRs can be determined a priori from tabulated ionic mobilities and pK values of the analytes and of the constituents of the BGE or, for strong analytes, by using experimental data from the electropherogram of the analysis itself. The practical procedure of the analysis includes enrichment of the sample with a known quantity of a suitable standard and a single CZE run of the resulting mixture. The injected volume does not need to be known and thus the procedure also eliminates the injection error. The proposed procedure has been verified experimentally and reproducible and accurate values were obtained by using four different CZE apparatus for the analyses of standard mixtures of cations in three different BGEs.