Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2000

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Chemistry

Major Professor

Michael J. Sepaniak

Committee Members

George Kabalka

Abstract

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has emerged as a powerful analytical technique for the separation science and other disciplines. CE has been applied to the separation of a wide variety of analytes ranging from inorganic ions, organics, proteitis, DNA, and much more. However, detection methods have always been a primary concern. In fact, from the early reports of CE to the modern day advent of CE, detection methods have been problematic. Many detection methods have been employed with CE ranging from absorbance, electrochemical, conductivity, laser induced fluorescence, thermal lens, and others. The increasing pressure to detect small amounts down to the single molecule level has led to the improvement of the above methods and the implementation of new methods. One new method introduced is the use of sheath flow cells (SEC) for ultrasensitive detection down to the attomole level and approaching the single molecule level. With this development of SEC, has come the implementation of new applications. A post-column derivatization technique based on the SEC arrangement for the study of DNA-protein interaction is explored. The development of SEC as a detection methodology has warranted the need for a rugged device that can be used in a routine laboratory setting. A new device based on this concept is introduced, constructed, and implemented for reduced dimension separation techniques such as CE. One of the drawbacks to the aforementioned detection methods is the inability to obtain structural information from a CE separation. With the recent growth and explosion of surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), detection levels have approached the single molecule level with this method. This work combines the advantages of CE with the structural information inherent to SERS to obtain structural information from a CE separation. CE-SERS is introduced, implemented and evaluated in this work. The coupling of CE with SERS offers the advantages of an alternative for qualitative analysis, kinetic studies, and others.

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