Continuous Molecular Concentration and Separation Using Pulsed-Field Conductive-Wall Single-Buffer Teı́chophoresis

Abstract

We present an experimental study of a novel continuous electrokinetic molecular concentration and separation technique termed teı ́chophoresis (TPE). We demonstrate here that TPE can serve as a potential alternative to the electrokinetic method isotachophoresis (ITP). In ITP, an electric field serves to focus charged species between a low-mobility terminating electrolyte (TE) and a high-mobility leading electrolyte (LE). Similarly, TPE serves to focus charged species between a low-mobility TE; however, the LE is conveniently replaced with a no-flux boundary generated by a conductive wall. The electric field can still penetrate this no-flux region due to the wall's finite conductivity, but ion migration is impeded due to the physicality of the wall. We perform detailed concentration and separation experiments across varying electric potentials, flow rates, and TE concentrations. We also show that TPE can achieve a 60,000-fold concentration factor continuously without an LE, using only 10 V DC. In comparison with conventional batch-driven ITP, continuous free-flow wall TPE (FFTPE) has the potential to serve as a simplified alternative method. FFTPE offers a high concentration power at a fraction of the required voltage, does not require an LE, and has the increased throughput potential of a continuous process.