Simultaneous Analysis of Monovalent Anions and Cations with a Sub-Microliter Dead-Volume Flow-Through Potentiometric Detector for Ion Chromatography.

A microliter dead-volume flow-through cell as a potentiometric detector is described in this article for sensitive, selective and simultaneous detection of common monovalent anions and cations in single column ion chromatography for the first time. The detection cell consisted of less selective anion- and cation-selective composite membrane electrodes together with a solid-state composite matrix reference electrode. The simultaneous separation and sensitive detection of sodium (Na(+)), potassium (K(+)), ammonium (NH4 (+)), chloride (Cl(-)) and nitrate (NO3 (-)) in a single run was achieved by using 98% 1.5 mM MgSO4 and 2% acetonitrile eluent with a mixed-bed ion-exchange separation column without suppressor column system. The separation and simultaneous detection of the anions and cations were completed in 6 min at the eluent flow-rate of 0.8 mL/min. Detection limits, at S/N = 3, were ranged from 0.2 to 1.0 µM for the anions and 0.3 to 3.0 µM for the cations, respectively. The developed method was successfully applied to the simultaneous determination of monovalent anions and cations in several environmental and biological samples.