Question

What is the major advantage of electrophoresis over other types of chromatography?

Answer 1

The major advantages are :

(1) The advantages of using capillary tubes are that the lateral diffusion effects are reduced and temperature differences across the tube are reduced when compared to chromatography.

(2) The properties of the tube and other properties such as plug flow where the velocity of the fluid is considered constant across the tube’s cross-section, perpendicular to the flow, the axial diffusion is the only factor leading to dispersion, so the separation efficiency using electrophoresis is very high.

(3) Small pH affects a molecules charge and flow in electrophoresis, thus small variations in pH have a greater impact in electrophoresis than in HPLC. Compared with HPLC, the control of the pH is critical in electrophoresis and there are many factors, including temperature, that affect pH.