Assessment and Comparison of the Overall Analytical Potential of Capillary Electrophoresis and High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Using the RGB Model: How Much Can We Find Out?

The choice between capillary electrophoresis (CE) and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is not easy and depends on many factors. An attempt to facilitate this choice is this work, in which both techniques have been confronted on the basis of the RGB model, offering a transparent and pictorial way to compare individual parameters as well as the overall analytical potential of each tool. To ensure the universal nature of the comparison, a simple in composition and chemically diverse model sample was used, accompanied by the data processing method reducing the potential impact of analyte selection. Moreover, permanent coating of the inner surface of the capillary and addition of a surfactant to the separation buffer were considered as the additional factors that may affect the assessment of the CE technique. The presented analysis can be valuable in any discussions about the intrinsic advantages and disadvantages of CE and HPLC, and divagations on how they affect the overall potential and usability of each. We also provide access to the Excel worksheets used for the assessment, which can be easily modified to reevaluate the methods with a different selection of variables, and analyze other possible scenarios.