Characterization of capillary inner surface conditions with streaming potential

Abstract Streaming potential is created when an electrolyte solution is forced to flow pass a charged surface. For an uncoated fused silica capillary, the streaming potential is measured between the inlet and outlet vials while applying a pressure across the capillary. The changes in streaming potential can be used to characterize the properties of the capillary inner surface. In this work, HCl, NaCl, and NaOH solutions ranging from 0.4 to 6 mM were used as the background electrolyte (BGE) at temperatures of 15 to 35 °C for the mesurements. The streaming potential decreases with the increase in BGE concentration, and the trend is amplified at higher temperatures. When buffer solutions in the pH range of 1.5 to 12.7 were used as the BGE, streaming potential was shown to be sensitive to changes in pH but reaches a maximum at around 9.5. At pH < 3.3, no streaming potentials were observed. The pH of zero surface charge (streaming potential equals 0) changes with temperature, and is measured to be 3.3 to 3.1 when the temperature is changed from 15 to 35°C. Zeta potentials can be calculated from the measured streaming potential, conductivity, and the solution viscosity. Surface charge densities were calculated in this work using the zeta potentials obtained. We demonstrated that capillary surface conditions can significantly change the streaming potential, and with three different solutions, we showed that analyte-dependent adsorption can be monitored and mitigated to improve the peak symmetry and migration times reproducibility.