Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a rapidly growing separation method that is used in industries such as pharmacy, forensic chemistry, and protein research. This method’s rapid growth makes it important to teach to undergraduate students, however, the instruments for performing CE are very expensive at ~$150,000. The goal of this project is to design an affordable microfluidic device that can be used to teach capillary electrophoresis to students. This device was made using low-cost, easy-to-obtain materials. With these materials, an experiment was designed to demonstrate the transport mechanisms in CE. This was shown to students by having them observe an easily visualized separation in the microfluidic device. Along with the experiment, an assessment was given to the students to gauge their knowledge of CE before and after performing the experiment. The questions on this assessment covered concepts of CE at various levels of difficulty to see how much students learn through the activity.

Designing a cost-effective experiment to illustrate capillary electrophoresis to undergraduate students

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