Capillary electrophoresis, or CE, describes a family of techniques used to separate a variety of compounds. These analyses, all driven by an electric field , are performed in narrow tubes and can result in the rapid separation of many hundreds of different compounds. The versatility and number of ways that CE can be used means that almost all molecules, and even whole organisms can be separated using the powerful methods.
There are a number of different ways of performing CE separations. This makes the technique especially useful as it optimised for the separation you are interested in whether this be ensuring purity during manufacture, or diagnosing illness in a hospital. Separations driven by electrophoresis also have a novel separating mechanism. This makes them useful in situations where other liquid phase separation techniques are limited or impractical.
The components of a CE instrument (image courtesy of Agilent Technologies)
The advantages of capillary electrophoresis are it:
There are a number of different ways of performing CE separations. This makes the technique especially useful as it optimised for the separation you are interested in whether this be ensuring purity during manufacture, or diagnosing illness in a hospital. Separations driven by electrophoresis also have a novel separating mechanism. This makes them useful in situations where other liquid phase separation techniques are limited or impractical.
The components of a CE instrument (image courtesy of Agilent Technologies)
The advantages of capillary electrophoresis are it:
