About CE-MS Interface Development

The field of CE-MS coupling is currently rapidly evolving. The established co-axial sheath solvent flow electrospray ionization interface method as introduced by Agilent Technologies (before Hewlett-Packard) is challenged by new sheathless or extremely low sheath flow sprayers published by Moini et al, Chen et al, Dovichi et al and Smith et al. with putative higher sensitivity. These novel approaches though are not yet offered commercially in a coherent, complete CE-MS system as Agilent Technologies does.

Agilent is challenging these competitive, new CE-MS coupling methods by improving all components of their current approach from the CE, the sprayer, and the MS to the software controlling the overall system rendering their system robust, reliable, and comparatively sensitive. Moreover, an extensive library of CE-MS AppNotes and a guidebook "CE/MS Principles and Practices, a guidebook for novices and practitioners" has been published. These exciting developments will eventually benefit all users and deliver a compelling argument for using CE as a separation technique for chemical analysis and bio-analytical measurements.

For this reason, I have started a blog about CE-MS. In these blog pages, I will describe the history of the development of CE-MS interfaces towards the current state-of-the-art coaxial sheath solvent flow, triple tube electrospray ionization interface for CE-MS paralleled by the exciting recent developments indicated above. These new CE-MS coupling approaches will be discussed in detail too and assessed relative to the current state-of-the-art coaxial sheath solvent flow ESI interface.

Besides these constraints provided by the CE separation on the interfacing method as well as practical solutions or workarounds will be addressed. Some representative examples from the literature will be presented.

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