Flow-Injection Preconcentration of Chloramphenicol Using Molecularly Imprinted Polymer for HPLC Determination in Environmental Samples

The residue of antibiotic chloramphenicol (CAP) is important issue for food quality control and also for the environmental monitoring. It is banned for use in food-producing animals and has very limited use in human medicine, because of its severe impact on human health. Determination of trace level of CAP in environmental samples requires a very sensitive analytical method and efficient preconcentration procedure. CAP can be efficiently preconcentrated in flow-injection system using flow-through reactor packed with molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP), but determination of CAP in eluate from MIP requires the application of chromatographic separation, which was made in reversed-phase HPLC system with UV detection. In optimized conditions the limit of detection for 100 mL sample in HPLC with offline preconcentration on MIP was evaluated as 0.66 mg/L. In hyphenated FIA-HPLC system with zone sampling the LOD for developed method was evaluated as 15 ng/L, which indicates the possibility of using it for analysis of environmental samples

New Analytical Methods Developed for Determination of Perfluorinated Surfactants in Waters and Wastes

Perfluorinated organic compounds have been recognized in recent years as globally distributed persistent organic pollutants of an entirely anthropogenic origin, but present already even in the most remote places of the globe, including organisms of wild fauna. Numerous studies have also shown that they are contained in human organisms all over the world. In this work a special attention is given to perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs), widely used in various areas of modern life. New methods developed for their determination using the HPLC with fluorescence detection and capillary electrophoretic methods are discussed, as well as the new method for the determination of total organic fluorine (TOF). (doi: 10.5562/cca1776

Modification of Resolution in Capillary Electrophoresis for Protein Profiling in Identification of Genetic Modification in Foods

The capillary electrophoresis with UV detection was employed for protein profiling in extracts from maize and soybeans. Modifications of back-ground electrolyte and coating the capillary wall with polybrene was employed in order to decrease the protein adsorption on the capillary walls. The obtained protein profiles were compared for transgenic and non-transgenic variants, showing in some cases significant changes that might be employed for identification of genetic modifications of plants or foods of plant origin. (doi: 10.5562/cca1777

Application of Capillary Electrophoresis for Determination of Inorganic Analytes in Waters

Aside from HPLC and GC, capillary electrophoresis (CE) is one of the most important techniques for high-performance separations in modern analytical chemistry. Its main advantages are the possibility of using different detection techniques, the possibility of in-capillary sample processing for preconcentration or derivatization, and ease of instrumental miniaturization down to the microfluidic scale. Those features are utilized in the separation of macromolecules in biochemistry and in genetic investigations, but they can be also used in determinations of inorganic ions in water analysis. This review, based on about 100 original research works, presents applications of CE methods in water analysis reported in recent decade, mostly regarding conductivity detection or indirect UV detection. The developed applications include analysis of high salinity sea waters, as well as analysis of other surface waters and drinking waters