Program
 
General Session 4: Marine environment, ecosystem & sustainability
 
 
 
Poster
Hand portable capillary electrophoresis instrument for distributed monitoring heavy metals in environmental water
GS4-02
Min Zhang* , Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science, School of Chemistry, University of Tasmania
Petr Smejkal, Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science, School of Chemistry, University of Tasmania
Rosanne M Guijt, School of Medicine and Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science, University of Tasmania
Michael C Breadmore, Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science, School of Chemistry, University of Tasmania
Presenter Email: min.zhang@utas.edu.au
We describe a miniaturized capillary electrophoresis instrument for distributed environmental sensing. The instrument is costs <$1000 USD, is portable (21 cm x 10 cm x 7 cm) and can be powered by battery or USB port. The electrophoretic separation channel is fused silica capillary of 25 or 50 μm, connected with an automatic flow-through injection system via a grounded cross section. Automatic sample injection is achieved by controlling several mini peristaltic pumps and a solenoid valve. The highest voltage of this system is up to 10 kV.  The system is demonstrated for the measurement of heavy metals in environmental waters. Metals, such as Co2+, Cr3+, Cu2+, Cd2+, Mn2+, Zn2+ and Ni2+ are complexed online with 4-(2-Pyridylazo) Resorcinol (PAR), and the derivatives separated by CZE mode with on-capillary detection by a LED (500 nm) based absorbance detector. The detection limits are sub-μM levels, and the analysis time is 10 min/sample. The instrument has been tested for consecutively operation in the laboratory for one month, and RSDs of peak height are lower than 10% after internal standard (Co2+) correction. The system is able to consecutively measure 106 samples within 11 h, while only powered by battery of a laptop. We have on-field tested it in western coast of Tasmania to demonstrate it is capability for distributed environmental sensing.