Capillary Electrophoresis and its Types, Electro-osmotic flow , Electrophoretic mobility

 Capillary Electrophoresis

In capillary electrophoresis process, a capillary tube is used. It separate mixture components on the basis of molecular weight and charge.

Fused Silica Capillary tube:

 It is made up of fused silica. The external diameter is 75-100µm and internal diameter is 50-75µm. The length of capillary tube is 25-100cm.

 A jacket of insulator is present outside the capillary tube. The gel is filled in the capillary tube which is highly purified. Gel may be made of polyacrylamide, starch or cellulose acetate.

It is more efficient then gel electrophoresis.

Bare silica electrophoresis:

It is known as uncoated capillaries. It is made up of highly purified fused silica.

This contain silanol group Si-OH which shows different behavior with the change of pH.




Types of Capillary Electrophoresis:

The wall of Capillary electrophoresis is negatively charged. Two mechanisms occur in the capillary tube:

Electro-osmotic flow

Electrophoretic mobility

Electro-osmotic flow

It is the movement of separation of mixture components through the silica capillary as the result of existence of zeta potential at the solvent silica interference. It explains the flow of buffer solution.

The potential difference exists between surfaces of solid particles immersed in conducting liquid and bulk of liquid.

Capillary wall contain negative charge due to basic pH. Some of the negative charge is neutralize by the attraction of cation and form fixed layer.

Now fix layer having negative charge and concentration of cation is high as compare to concentration of anion make a layer known as diffused layer.

The flow of diffused layer and bulk solution is always from anode to cathode because the concentration of cation is higher than the anion .

Diffused layer and fixed layer is collectively called electrically double layer.

Electrophoretic Mobility

It is represented by µeq. It is responsible for the separation of mixture components on the basis of charges. The velocity by which solute moves under the influence of electric field, this velocity is called electrophoretic velocity veq.

vep = µeq  E

Where µeq is the electrophoretic mobility of solute and E is the magnitude of electric field. The electrophoretic mobility of solute is defined as:

µeq  = q / 6πƞr

where q is the charge on solute, Æž is the viscosity of buffer solution and r is the stokes radius of solute. Following charges are present in the bulk solution:

Negative charges moves towards anode.

Positive charges move towards cathode.

Neutral particles cannot move.

Dependence of electrophoretic mobility:

·       Ionic charge on analyte

·       Frictional retardation force on analyte

Suppose we have two molecules having same size, the molecules which have greater charge will move faster as compared to the other molecule. So that electrophoretic mobility is directly proportional to charge concentration of the molecule.

Electrophoretic mobility µep is inversely proportional to the frictional retardation. If the friction is high, the sample molecules show slow movement. Frictional retardation force on analyte depends upon following factors:

Size of molecule      

If the size of molecule is small, it shows quick movements towards their respective electrodes so that their electrophoretic mobility is high.

If the size of molecule is large, their velocity is less as compared to small size molecules so that electrophoretic mobility is less.

Shape of molecules

Regular shape molecule bears less friction so that electrophoretic mobility is high.

Irregular shape molecules bear more friction so that their electrophoretic mobility is less.

Stokes Radius

The size of ion in electrophoresis is its stokes radius.


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