Low‐cost automated capillary electrophoresis instrument assembled from commercially available parts

Abstract

A CE instrument that can be assembled from commercially available components with minimal construction effort is described. Except for the electronic control circuitry no specially made parts are required. It is based on a flexible design of microfluidic, electropneumatic, and electronic sections and different configurations can easily be implemented. Automated injection into the capillary is performed hydrodynamically by the application of a pressure for a controlled length of time. The performance of the device was tested with a contactless conductivity detector by separating different metal ions. In addition, nine metal cations related to the quality of honey were separated in 2.3 min and four honey samples were analysed quantitatively to demonstrate the applicability of the method.

Capillary Electrophoresis Instruments for Medical Applications and Falsified Drug Analysis/Quality Control in Developing Countries

“…Some normal-wear parts will always remain difficult to obtain in developing countries; therefore, it is necessary to rethink the design of the CE so that each component can be replaced with a local solution or is easily available via the internet. As an example, Furter et al developed a cost-saving automated capillary electrophoresis analytical instrument assembled with commercially available parts . The latter can be easily duplicated and consist of an electropneumatic part, a data acquisition system, a fluid handling part, an electronic controller, a safety cage with an HV electrode, an HV module, and a commercially available C 4 D detector.…”

Capillary Electrophoresis as a Monitoring Tool for Flow Composition Determination

“…They provided an overview of hardware and software sources, with emphasis on the availability of open source information on the web and in the scientific literature. Hauser’s group reported several successful open source set-ups composed of commercially available parts without the requirement of mechanical and electronic workshop facilities [ 28 , 29 ]. To make the fabrication of CE instruments especially easy for interested persons, the latter publication even includes a “shopping list “of the needed parts, together with vendors.…”

Determination of tobramycin in eye drops with an open-source hardware ion mobility spectrometer

“…It also does not need the high-pressure pumps and manifolds of a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system. In similarity to CE [ 1 ], it is therefore possible to build IMS instruments with limited resources and inexpensively, making the analytical technique available to parties who cannot afford state-of-the-art commercial mass-spectrometers or HPLC instruments. Recently, detailed designs of an instrument [ 2 ] and the electronic pulser circuitry [ 3 ], required for ion injection, have been published by Clowers and coworkers in the spirit of open-source hardware (OSH), further facilitating in-house construction.…”