Aglient Capillary Electrophoresis Interface Alignment
Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:14 pm
by caem586
I am currently adapting methods using CE to analyze anions in seawater with an Agilent CE 7100. The alignment interfaces available for purchase from Agilent make aligning the capillary window easy, but is there a way to do this manually without the different expensive interfaces? Is the optical slit on the CE programmable or hackable in any fashion as to match the ID and window height of different capillaries? Right now we are using a green alignment interface for 50um ID capillaries, but also need to use a 75um ID capillary. Thank you for your advice.
Re: Aglient Capillary Electrophoresis Interface Alignment
Posted: Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:00 am
by cari
If affordable, I would advise to use the appropriate interface for each capillary. The slit width is adapted to the capillary diameter, to reduce the amount of stray light and therefore for best signal to noise ratio. It is of course possible to use other interfaces, but at the cost of signal to noise ratio. If it is just a pivotal study not connected to sensitivity, fine. If you do want to implement the method, I'd advice to buy the proper interface. It keeps forever.
I would not mess with the interface other than clean it regularly.
On the subject of capillary apertures: if someone is using a Beckman instrument, the slit or aperture is in the little black thing you clip on the capillary cassette. This is plastic and needs to be replaced at least yearly, as the energy of the UV lamp slowly degrades the plastic.
/Cari