Fully microfabricated and integrated SU-8-based capillary electrophoresis-electrospray ionization microchips for mass spectrometry

We present a fully microfabricated and monolithically integrated capillary electrophoresis (CE)-electrospray ionization (ESI) chip for coupling with high-throughput mass spectrometric (MS) analysis. The chips are fabricated fully of a negative photoresist SU-8 by a standard lithographic process which enables straightforward batch fabrication of multiple chips with precisely controlled dimensions and, thus, reproducible analytical performance from chip to chip. As the coaxial sheath flow interface is patterned as an integral part of the SU-8 chip, the fluidic design is dead-volume-free. No significant peak broadening occurs so that very narrow peak widths (down to 2-3 s) are obtained. The sheath flow interface also enables comprehensive optimization of both the CE and the ESI conditions separately so that the same chip design is adaptable to diverse analytical conditions. Plate numbers of the order of 10(5) m(-1) and good resolution are routinely reached for small molecules and peptides within a 2 cm separation length and a typical cycle time of only 30-90 s per sample. In addition, a limit of detection of 100 nM corresponding to a total amount of only 4.5 amol (per injection volume of 45 pL) and excellent quantitative linearity (R-2 = 0.9999; 100 nM to 100 mu M) were obtained in small-molecule analysis using verapamil as a test compound. The quantitative repeatability was proven good (8.5-21.4% relative standard deviation, peak area) also for the other drug substances and peptides tested.