title: A new sheathless electrospray interface for coupling of capillary electrophoresis to ion-trap mass spectrometry.
abstract: A simple laboratory-made sheathless electrospray interface for coupling of capillary electrophoresis to ion-trap mass spectrometry (CE/MS) was developed. The interface was machined in-house and it was designed to be freely interchangeable with the commercially available ionization sources for the mass spectrometer. Sharpened fused-silica capillaries were coated with nickel by a simple electrodeless plating procedure and were used as all-in-one columns/emitters. The electrodeless plating produced a 2-5- micro m thick smooth nickel layer that lasted for more than 8 h of continuous electrospraying. The performance of the CE/MS interface was examined by using four cationic imipramine derivatives as test substances. Relative detection limits were calculated on the basis of the extracted ion electrophorograms and were in the range 6-130 nmol/L, corresponding to absolute detection limits in the range of 20-400 amol. The system was applied for analysis of impurities in an impure imipramine N-oxide preparation, and two of the impurities could be identified on the basis of online-MS(MS) spectra recorded in scan-dependent mode.
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Royal Danish School of Pharmacy, Universitetsparken 2, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bendahl
authors.forename: Steen Honoré
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Jørgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Olsen