Capillary electrochromatography

Capillary electrochromatography (CEC) is an electromigration separation technique that is a hybrid between capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography. This chapter covers the basic principles of the methodology including some theoretical aspects and the instrumentation. CEC can be performed either in packed or open-tubular capillary columns, and packed capillary columns can be further divided into particle-packed columns and monolithic columns. The latter is slowly attracting more and more attention. The CEC detection techniques are briefly described with a special emphasis on CEC with mass spectrometric detection. Some general aspects on miniaturized systems are introduced, and some typical CEC applications are described.