μFlow Group, Department of Chemical Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050, Brussels, Belgium.
Lab Chip. 2020 Nov 7;20(21):3938-3947. doi: 10.1039/d0lc00773k. Epub 2020 Sep 25.
Chromatographic columns are suffering from Taylor-Aris dispersion, especially for slowly diffusing molecules such as proteins. Since downscaling the channel size to reduce Taylor-Aris dispersion meets fundamental pressure limitations, new strategies are needed to further improve chromatography beyond its current limits. In this work we demonstrate a method to reduce Taylor-Aris dispersion by lateral mixing in a newly designed silicon AC-electroosmotic flow mixer. We obtained a reduction in κ by a factor of three in a 40 μm × 20 μm microchannel, corresponding to a plate height gain of 2 to 3 under unretained conditions at low to high Pe values. We also demonstrate an improvement of a reverse-phase chromatographic separation of coumarins.
色谱柱受到泰勒-阿里斯扩散的影响，尤其是对于蛋白质等扩散缓慢的分子。由于将通道尺寸缩小以减少泰勒-阿里斯扩散会遇到基本的压力限制，因此需要新的策略来进一步提高色谱法的性能，超越其当前的限制。在这项工作中，我们展示了一种通过在新设计的硅 AC 电动流动混合器中进行横向混合来减少泰勒-阿里斯扩散的方法。我们在 40μm×20μm 的微通道中使 κ 减少了三分之一，这对应于在低至高 Pe 值下未保留条件下板高增益 2 到 3。我们还展示了反相色谱分离香豆素的改进。
