Simultaneous electrochemical and electrochemiluminescence detection for microchip and conventional capillary electrophoresis

A simultaneous electrochemical (EC) and electrochemiluminescence (ECL) detection scheme was introduced to both microchip and conventional capillary electrophoresis (CE). In this dual detection scheme, tris(2,2'-bipyridyl)ruthenium(II) (Ru(bPY)(3)(2+)) was used as an ECL reagent as well as a catalyst (in the formation of Ru(bPY)(3)(3+)) for the EC detection. In the Ru(bPY)(3)(2+)-ECL process, Ru(bPY)(3)(3+) was generated and then reacted with analytes resulting in an ECL emission and a great current enhancement in EC detection due to the catalysis of Ru(bPY)(3)(3+). The current response and ECL signals were monitored simultaneously. In the experiments, dopamine and three kinds of pharmaceuticals, anisodamine, ofloxacin, and lidocaine, were selected to validate this dual detection strategy. Typically, for the EC detection of dopamine with the presence of Ru(bPY)(3)(2+), a similar to 5 times higher signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) can be achieved than that without Ru(bPY)(3)(2+), during the simultaneous EC and ECL detection of a mixture of dopamine and lidocaine using CE separation. The results indicated that this dual EC and ECL detection strategy could provide a simple and convenient detection method for analysis of more kinds of analytes in CE separation than the single EC or ECL detection alone, and more information of analytes could be achieved in analytical applications simultaneously.