Introduction to Capillary Electromigration Methods

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a separation technique being increasingly taught at universities because it is gaining more importance in daily analyses, especially of proteomics and pollutants. Few laboratory experiments have been developed, however, that teach students this technique. In this work, we propose, as an introductory experiment using CE, the optimization of the separation of a group of five pesticides: three fungicides (Pyrifenox, Pyrimethanil and Cyprodinil) and two insecticides (Cyromazine and Pirimicarb) by capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE), in order to evaluate the different factors that influence the separation of the selected compounds (pH, ionic strength, separation voltage, etc.).