Adaptation of an evaporative light-scattering detector to micro and capillary liquid chromatography and response assessment

A commercially available evaporative light-scattering detection (ELSD) system was adapted for micro and capillary LC. Therefore the various parameters involved in the droplet formation during the nebulization step in the ELSD system were studied. It was shown that the velocity term in the Nukiyama Tanasawa equation remains constant, leading to droplets of the same order of magnitude for narrow bore and capillary columns. Consequently, the ELSD modification was performed by decreasing the internal diameter of the effluent capillary tube in the nebulizer nozzle and by keeping its external diameter constant. Next, response curves for a conventional and the developed micro and capillary LC were compared as to investigate why a linear ELSD response is often obtained when used in micro or capillary LC. By splitting the flow rate post column, we showed that the nebulization process was not at the origin of the phenomenon. For ceramide III and tripalmitin, the response curves were found to be non-linear. However the curvature was less significant when the columns internal diameter decreased. Calculated particle size profiles for micro or capillary LC suggest that the particle entering the detection chamber are bigger than under conventional LC conditions. Last, triethylamine and formic acid were used to increase the response of the detector. The response enhancement, expected from previous studies, was established for the two lipids involved in this study.