An electrophoretic ion analyzer for on-site autonomous water monitoring

An on-site ion analyzer based on capillary electrophoresis with pressure-driven flow through injection and capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detection has been developed for field monitoring of cations and anions in environmental waters. Automated time-pressure based hydrodynamic injection provides stable pL-nL scale injection (RSD = 1.96%, <em>n</em> = 30). A mixture of 400 mM Bis-Tris, 400 mM MOPS and 2 mM 18-crown-6 is used as the background electrolyte to provide repeatable separations. A proprietary hydrophilic coated 25 μm id capillary is used to suppress the electroosmotic flow. Separations of anions (Cl^-, NO₃^-, NO₂^-, SO₄^2-, F^- and PO₄^3-) and cations (NH₄⁺, K⁺, Na⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺) are achieved by switching the polarity of the high voltage power supply in two individual runs. Signal fluctuations caused by the temperature or viscosity changes in on-site monitoring are corrected by on-line introduction of internal standards. RSDs of the migration time and the corrected peak height over ~35 h and 350 analysis cycles are < 4.06%. The LODs of inorganic ions are in the range of 2.1 μM (K⁺) to 6.8 μM (PO₄^3-).  The feasibility for on-site water monitoring with this system has been validated by a standard Ion chromatography method with comparable results obtained.