Hydrophobic-phase-modified fused-silica columns for capillary electrophoresis

Coated capillaries modified with a hydrophobic layer were developed. Linear hydrocarbons and ethylbenzene modified surfaces greatly improved the electrophoretic performance of the capillaries. The column efficiency for organic compounds reached as high as 327 000 theoretical plate numbers per meter on a 50 μm I.D. linear hydrocarbon (C6) surface treated fused-silica capillary column. This value did not change during 50 repeated analyses and the columns showed strong stability against 0.1 M NaOH and 0.1 M HCl. The relative standard deviation of the run-to-run, day-to-day, and capillary-to-capillary coating with hydrophobic layer showed values of ≤2.5%, and good reproducibility. The separations of four aromatic amines and six pharmacological amines at pH 2.5 is reported.