Ionic Liquids for Silica Modification: Assessment by Capillary Zone Electrophoresis

Use of Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs) in capillary electrophoresis as the additives of separation media and/or modifiers of capillary surface is question of great interest. The modified capillary has remarkable benefits: the analyte - silica wall interactions are significantly decreased and the direction of electroosmotic flow can be manipulated by appropriate modifying reagent. In the present study imidazole-based ionic liquid analogs have been permanently bounded to capillary wall. The coated capillaries were examined for use with aqueous as well as with non-aqueous electrolytes. The effectiveness of the coating has been investigated by separating the mixture of phenolic compounds in non-aqueous media. The run-to-run and for day-to-day reproducibility of coated capillaries in terms of neutral marker migration times has been evaluated.