Extension of the application range of UV-absorbing organic solvents in capillary electrophoresis by the use of a contactless conductivity detector

A contactless conductivity detection (CCD) system is used for capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) with non-aqueous solvents of the buffering background electrolyte, which exhibit strong UV absorbance below 230 nm. It is found that the CCD characteristics with such solvents (propylene carbonate, NN-dimethylformamide and N,N-dimethylacetamide as examples) is the same as with aqueous solutions: the same signal and noise is obtained for a given electric conductance of the background electrolyte, independent of the kind of the solvent. Therefore CCD enables the extension of the application range to solvents with restricted use for common UV detection in CZE due to their unfavourable or even unfitting optical properties. The applicability of CCD is demonstrated by CZE of aliphatic ammonium compounds in these solvents. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BV All rights reserved.