Analytical Sciences

A Portable Liquid Chromatograph with a Battery-operated Compact Electroosmotic Pump and a Microfluidic Chip Device with a Reversed Phase Packed Column

Akihiko ISHIDA,* Mitsutaka FUJII,** Takehiro FUJIMOTO,* Shunsuke SASAKI,* Ichiro YANAGISAWA,** Hirofumi TANI,* and Manabu TOKESHI*

*Division of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Sapporo 060-8628, Japan
**Nano Fusion Technologies, Inc., c/o B-M202 Collaborative Research (CCR) Bldg., Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

A compact and lightweight liquid chromatography system is presented with overall dimensions of 26 cm width × 18 cm length × 21 cm height and weight of 2 kg. This system comprises a battery-operated compact electroosmotic pump, a manual injector, a microfluidic chip device containing a packed column and an electrochemical detector, and a USB bus-powered potentiostat. The pumping system was designed for microfluidic-based reversed-phase liquid chromatography in which an electroosmotically generated water stream pushes the mobile phase via a diaphragm for the output. The flow rate ranged from 0 to 10 μL/min and had a high degree of precision. The pumping system operated continuously for over 24 h with dry batteries. The column formed in the microfluidic device was packed with 3-μm ODS particles with a length of 30 mm and a diameter of 0.8 mm. The results presented herein demonstrate the performance of the pumping system and the column using alkylphenols, catecholamine, catechin, and amino acids.

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