Separation of biomolecules using electrophoresis and nanostructures

A large number of nanostructures have the potential to be used together with electrophoresis as separation media or separation additive in capillary electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, capillary electrochromatography, and other analytical techniques. Among those structures are nanotubes, nanocavities, nanowires, nanoposts, nanocones, nanospheres, molecular imprints, nanoparachutes (conical monodendrons), and general nanoparticles with random structures. This review is focused only on publications describing experimental works using molecular imprints, nanoposts, and nanospheres that are fabricated and applied for the purpose of separation media in electrophoresis-driven separations. The review follows an approximate chronological order in each section. As shown, the most popular are those resulting from molecular imprinting technologies. These biomimetic receptors are used in a great variety of fields, which includes electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, capillary electrochromatography, and other fields not reviewed in this work. A few examples of these other fields are, e.g., liquid chromatography, membranes, extractor or preconcentration techniques, immunosorbent assays, and sensing devices. The second topic scanned in the present work is the nanostructures that are used as obstacles to replace gels or polymers solutions in electrophoresis. Finally, the nascent field of nanospheres of gold and other materials as separation media is also reviewed.