Microfabricated refractive index gradient based detector for reversed-phase liquid chromatography with mobile phase gradient elution

Typical refractive index (RI) detectors for liquid chromatography (LC) are not well suited to application with mobile phase gradient elution, due to the difficulty in correcting for the detected baseline shift during the gradient. We report a sensitive, highly reproducible, microfabricated refractive index gradient (micro-RIG) detector that performs well with mobile phase gradient elution LC. Since the micro-RIG signal remains on-scale throughout the mobile phase gradient, one can apply a baseline correction procedure. We demonstrate that by collecting two mobile phase gradient blanks and subtracting one of them from the other, a reproducible, flat baseline is achieved. Therefore, subtracting a blank from a separation provides a baseline corrected chromatogram with reasonably high signal-to-noise ratio for eluting analytes. The micro-RIG detector uses a collimated diode laser beam to optically probe a RIG formed perpendicular to the laminar flow direction within a microfabricated borosilicate glass chip. The chip-based design of the detector is suitable for either traditional bench-top or LC-on-a-chip technologies. We report reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) separations of proteins and polymers, over mobile phase gradient conditions of 67% A:33% B to 3% A:97% B by volume, where A is 96% methanol:3.9% water:0.1% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), and B is 3.9% methanol:96% water:0.1% TFA. The separations were performed on a Jupiter 5 μ C4 300 Å 150 mm × 1.0 mm Phenomenex column at a flow rate of 20 μl/min. Viscosity changes during the mobile phase gradient separation are found to shift the on-chip merge position of the detected concentration gradient (i.e., RIG), in a reproducible fashion. However, this viscosity effect makes detection sensitivity vary throughout the mobile phase gradient, due to moving the optimized position of the probe beam in relation to the analyte concentration gradient being probed. None-the-less, consistent limits of detection (LODs) were achieved. The 3-sigma deflection angle LOD was 16 μrad for micro-RIG detection, corresponding to an injected concentration LOD of 7 ppm (mass/mass) for cytochrome c.