HPCE high performance capillary electrophoretic separation

Although not completely correct, CEC is often presented as a hybrid method that combines the capillary column format and EOF typical of high-performance capillary electrophoresis (HPCE) with the use of a solid stationary phase and a separation mechanism based on specific interactions of solutes with a stationary phase characteristic of HPLC. Therefore, CEC is most commonly implemented by means typical of both HPLC (packed columns) and HPCE (electrophoretic instrumentation). To date, both columns and instrumentation developed specifically for CEC remain scarce. 

During the last decades the different modes of capillary electrophoresis (CE) have developed into high-performance (HPCE) separation methods, offering a high separation efficiency (lO -lO theoretical plates), high sensitivity (femtomole to zeptomole amounts in nano- to picoliter sample volumes), and short analysis times (typically 5-20 min, in special cases only a few seconds). They are considered as a recognized complement and/or coimterpart of liquid chromatography (LC) and gel electrophoretic methods. 

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