Rinse and evaporation coating of poly(methyl methacrylate) microchip for separation of sodium dodecyl sulfate–protein complex

We developed a novel channel wall coating on a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microchip using methylcellulose (MC) as a coating reagent to suppress electroosmotic flow (EOF) following the strong analytes adsorption via hydrophobic interaction with channel walls of PMMA. Our coating was obtained by first rinsing channel walls with MC-containing aqueous solution followed by evaporation. The coating made the hydrophilic channel wall lowering EOF by two orders of magnitude (1.2 × 10−5 cm2 V−1 s−1) as well as reducing the hydrophobic adsorption. On the coated channel walls, we successfully separated sodium dodecyl sulfate–protein complexes with high reproducibility and efficiency using dextran as a lower viscosity protein separation medium.