Carbon fiber electrodes amino acids, detection

Most electrode materials that are employed in LCEC can also be used for CEEC. The most commonly employed working electrode is a carbon fiber. Carbon fibers come in many different sizes and can also be etched to smaller diameters. Common applications of CEEC with carbon fiber electrodes are the detection of catecholamines in single neuronal cells and amino acids in brain microdialysis samples following derivatization with NDA/CN. 

Figure 13 Electropherogram of selected amino acids with end-column addition of 1 mM Ru (bpy)32+. Separation conditions 20 kV with injection of analytes for 8 s at 20 kV. Capillary, 75 im id, 62 cm long with a 4-cm detection capillary. Buffer 15 mM borate, pH 9.5. The electrode used for in situ generation of Ru(bpy)33+ was a 35-jlm-diameter carbon fiber, 3 mm long held at 1.15 V versus a saturated calomel electrode. The PMT was biased at 900 V. Peak identification (1) 100 fmol TEA, (2) 70 fmol proline (3) 1.6 pmol valine, (4) 50 pmol serine. Injection points. (From Ref. 97, with permission.)...

Selectivity in CEEC can be achieved through judicious selection of both the detection potential and the type of working electrode anployed. Obviously, the lowest potential necessary to detect all analytes of interest is optimal for CEEC. Most applications employ carbon fiber or disk electrodes. However, other electrode materials have been used for the detection of spedlic classes of compounds. For example, copper and nickel electrodes have been successfully employed for the detection of carbohydrates, amino acids, and peptides following CE separa-... 

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