A passive electrochemical detection principle that can be applied to capillary electrophoresis is presented. The separation electrical field is used to generate a potential difference between two electrodes located along the channel. For constant-current electrophoresis, the generated signal is proportional to the resistance of the solution passing between the two electrodes. Contrary to conductivity detectors that are ac driven and need to be decoupled from the separation field, the passive detection directly takes advantage of the separation field. The signal is simply measured by a high-impedance voltmeter. The detection concept has been validated by numerical simulations showing how the magnitude of the signal is related to the ratio between the electrode distance and the length of the sample plug. As a proof of the principle, this detection concept has been demonstrated by the electrophoretic separation of three alkali ions on a polymer microchip. Based on preliminary results, a detection limit of 20 microM and a dynamic range of up to 3 orders of magnitude have been achieved.

A new method for injecting and driving fluids by means of a multi-port injection valve and syringe pumps in a micro-channel network is described. A structure composed of two micro-channels arranged as a cross is connected with capillary tubes to an external multi-port injection valve. The fluid flows are driven by pressure and the multi-port valve controls the direction of the flow within the different sections of the structure. The first position of the multi-port valve allows the preparation of the loading of the sample, which is pinched in the cross section of the two micro-channels. The second position allows the precise injection of nL volumes. No dead volume exists between injection and separation modes. The system can be used to prepare a sample plug by pressure in order to perform chromatography with a broad range of buffered or non-buffered solutions. Thanks to the insensitivity to the ionic strength of the sample, this injection method is useful for the injection of complex biological samples in microchip analysis. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the method, different solutions of ionic or fluorescent molecules were injected and detected in a photoablated planar polymer device.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract