Electrostatic interaction mechanism on the separation of phenols by non-aqueous capillary electrophoresis

The electrostatic interaction between additive and analyte is of great importance to non-aqueous cap- illary electrophoresis(NACE)separation.Three tetraalkylammonium bromides and acetonitrile were applied as additives and running solvent respectively.The effect of alkyl chain length and concentra- tion of additive on electrostatic interactions was investigated by the separation of phenols.The sepa- ration ability was found to increase with decreasing alkyl chain length of the additive,and the resolu- tion values were increased with increasing additive concentration.The separation was seriously dete- riorated after a little amount of water was added in the running solution.Furthermore,the electrostatic interaction is strong under the conditions of low electron cloud density,weak steric hindrance and multi-interaction sites.Thus,the separation result can be predicted by theoretical analysis,which is helpful for the separation of other substances in NACE based on electrostatic interaction.