Recent developments in open tubular capillary electrochromatography from 2016 to 2017

Interest in open-tubular capillary electrochromatography (OT-CEC) continues to thrive because of the inherent advantage of OT-CEC combining the high efficiency of capillary electrophoresis and the high selectivity of high performance liquid chromatography. For the period 2016 to 2017, novel materials have been developed as first-time stationary phases for OT-CEC and are grouped in this review as polymer-based materials, frameworks, nanoparticles, graphene-based materials, and biomaterials. Coating and fabrication methods mostly rely on covalent coating strategies while non-covalent immobilisation strategies like electrostatic assembly are notably still being employed. The concern of overcoming phase ratio challenges in OT-CEC coatings have also generated adoption of combined coating strategies including multi-layering, layer-by-layer self-assembly and methods adapted from nanofilm fabrications like epitaxial growth, liquid phase deposition, or nucleation of crystal growth. The emergence of non-conventional coating characterisation methods such as transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction or X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is also discussed.