Recent advances in sheathless interfacing of capillary electrophoresis and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry

On line sheathless capillary electrophoresis (CE)-electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry is developing as a powerful method in bioanalytics as it provides high resolution, sensitivity, relatively short analysis times, and amenability to a wide class of compounds. However, unlike the popular nano liquid chromatography (nano LC) or sheath-flow CE/ESI-MS, the sheathless coupling lacks standardized designs and protocols. For this reason, sheathless CE/ESI is a subject of conceptual and technical upgrading more than any other liquid-based separation method hyphenated to MS. Here, recent innovations in sheathless CE/ESI-MS interfacing are gathered in a survey covering the 2005/2006 period. In the first part of the review, the current concepts and methods for in-laboratory production of sturdy designs based on either conductive emitters or electrodeless interfaces are described. The second part is dedicated to microchip CE platforms with externally connected emitters for sheathless coupling to ESI-MS and advanced microfluidic devices integrating CE and sheathless electrospray in a single chip substrate. The advantages, limitations and feasibility for certain applications of all these systems as well as the perspectives for their performance improvement are concurrently assessed.