Fundamental aspects of electromigrative separation techniques

Abstract

Electromigrative separation techniques currently present an excellent option for the analysis of important analytes for various industrial and scientific application fields. A large number of different separation modes exist, which are based on different physicochemical properties (i.e., different separation mechanisms) of the analytes and working buffers. These allow development of efficient and specific methods for the targeted applications mostly using the same equipment. Tailoring selectivity is possible with the addition of secondary selectors acting by complexation, ion-pairing, or affinity binding among others. Sensitivity and selectivity can be addressed using various detection systems, including, most often optical, conductivity and mass spectrometric detection.