Effects of nebulizing and drying gas flow on capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry

This study was focused on examining the influence of gas flow parameters on capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry (CE/MS) performance using sheath-liquid CE/MS interfaces. The effects of nebulizing and drying gas velocity and drying gas temperature on CE separation and MS detection sensitivity were systematically determined. Nebulizing gas velocity was observed to be a critical parameter in the optimization of CE/MS method, since it affected both MS detection sensitivity, and also CE separation efficiency for one interface design tested. Better detection sensitivity was obtained when the nebulizing gas velocity was increased. However, high velocity of the nebulizing gas flow can cause a hydrodynamic bulk flow inside the CE capillary, thus clearly increasing the apparent mobility and decreasing the resolution obtained for the compounds studied. Increasing the drying gas velocity or temperature did not affect the apparent mobility or the separation efficiency and the temperature could be increased to achieve the optimal detection sensitivity in the CE/MS analysis. For comparison, the effects of nebulizing gas flow were studied using a different design of the coaxial sheath-liquid CE/MS interface, and in this case better detection sensitivity but no effect on CE separation efficiency was observed with increased nebulizing gas velocity. These different effects of nebulizing gas flow on the CE bulk flow were concluded to result from pressure differences at the tip of the CE capillaries for the different CE/MS interface arrangements. It is therefore recommended that the cross-sectional dimensions of the fused-silica and steel capillaries, and the gas streamlines, should be optimized when CE/MS interfaces are built. Moreover, the effect of gas flow on CE separation should be studied when optimizing the CE/MS operation parameters. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.