Application of a digital signal enhancement processor to investigate improvements in sensitivity for capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrochromatography applications

Electroseparation techniques have been very successful in reducing analysis time and improving the resolution of separation. However, a major drawback has been their inherent lack of concentration sensitivity. Several approaches have been adopted to improve sensitivity requiring the use of either expensive detectors, specially adopted flow cells or chemical stacking techniques that are highly dependent on the buffer system and sample matrix. The approach described in this paper employs a signal enhancement processor to significantly improve the signal-to-background noise, without the use of any sample pre-treatment steps or the loss of peak resolution. The reduction in baseline noise also extends the linear dynamic range of measurement.