MECHANISTIC STUDY OF ELECTRICAL-FIELD FLOW FRACTIONATION .1. NATURE OF THE INTERNAL FIELD

Experimental results indicate that the electric held governing retenti on in the electrical held-flow fractionation (FFF) experiment is very sensitive to experimental parameters such as the flow rate and carrier conductivity. In this paper, the first of a two-part study on the mec hanics of electrical FFF, we present an electrical model of the channe l and characterize the dependence of many of the system parameters. Un derstanding the nature of the electric held in the channel is essentia l for using electrical FFF as a separation tool as well as a physical characterization technique where electrophoretic mobility and particle size are estimated.