Interfacial Electromigration for Accelerated Reactions and Small-Volume Analysis

Microdroplets have recently emerged as a unique form of a chemical reactor that has gained significant attention due to the interfacial chemistry that produces dramatic reaction acceleration. In this work, we have developed a strategy that allows a thin film to be delivered directly to the interface by electromigration in a theta capillary. Additional acceleration was observed due to reactants being transferred to the interface in electro-oxidative C-H/N-H coupling of phenothiazine with N, N’-dimethylaniline, and short-lived intermediates were captured in the radical radical coupling of DMA. Importantly, we applied the combination of electromigration and interfacial microreactor for in-situ extraction of lipids from small-volume plasma samples and accelerated electro-epoxidation of unsaturated lipids to determine the double bond positional isomers in the small-volume serum. The unique feature of electromigration of thin film to the interface and accelerated interfacial reactions holds great potential in small-volume sample analysis for disease diagnosis and prevention.