title: A compact and high-resolution version of a capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector.
abstract: An all-in-one version of a capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector is introduced. The absence of moving parts (potentiometers and connectors) makes it compact (6.5 cm(3)) and robust. A local oscillator, working at 1.1 MHz, was optimized to use capillaries of id from 20 to 100 microm. Low noise circuitry and a high-resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC) (21 bits effective) grant good sensitivities for capillaries and background electrolytes currently used in capillary electrophoresis. The fixed frequency and amplitude of the signal generator is a drawback that is compensated by the steady calibration curves for conductivity. Another advantage is the possibility of determining the inner diameter of a capillary by reading the ADC when air and subsequently water flow through the capillary. The difference of ADC reading may be converted into the inner diameter by a calibration curve. This feature is granted by the 21-bit ADC, which eliminates the necessity of baseline compensation by hardware. In a typical application, the limits of detection based on the 3sigma criterion (without baseline filtering) were 0.6, 0.4, 0.3, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.8 micromol/L for K(+), Ba(2+), Ca(2+), Na(+), Mg(2+), and Li(+), respectively, which is comparable to other high-quality implementations of a capacitively coupled contactless conductivity detector.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química Fundamental, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Kelliton José Mendonça
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Francisco
authors.forename: Claudimir Lucio
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: do Lago
mesh_terms: D002138:Calibration; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D004563:Electrochemistry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D057230:Limit of Detection; D008672:Metals, Alkali / Q000032:analysis*; D008673:Metals, Alkaline Earth / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D008672:Metals, Alkali; D008673:Metals, Alkaline Earth