APPLICABILITY OF CAPILLARY ZONE ELECTROPHORESIS TO STUDY METAL COMPLEXATION IN SOLUTION

The suitability of capillary zone electrophoresis for the determinatio n of stability constants of metal complexes was investigated. Three va riants were tested viz., the frontal analysis, the Hummel-Dreyer metho d and the vacancy peak method, in the step-wise complexation between c opper(II) and 1,10-phenanthroline as well as 2,2'-bipyridyl. The inves tigation reveals that CZE has attractive features for the quantitative study of complex formation with neutral ligands. However, the full ex ploitation requires more sensitive detection systems and application o f an automated CZE system.