EQUIPMENTS

1. Capillary electrophoresis (CE-DAD): P/ACE MDQ (BeckmanCoulter, Billerica, MA, USA) electrophoresis equipment with diode array detector.

2. Capillary electrophoresis (CE-DAD-FD-ELSD): G1600AX CE system equipped with diode array detector, Argos 250B fluorescence detector, and Agilent 1200 evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD). CE-ELSD interface was developed by our research group.

3. Capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS): G1600AX CE system equipped with diode array detector is interfaced directly with 6110 quadrupole mass spectrometer.

4. Capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS): P/ACE MDQ (BeckmanCoulter, Billerica, MA, USA), which is modified for hyphenation with MS. The TOF-MS utilized was a micrOTOF-Q II (Bruker Daltonics, Billerica, MA, USA).

5. Microchip-Capillary electrophoresis (μchip-CE): Micrux iHVSTAT Portable analytical instrument for microfluidic and electrochemistry applications.

6. Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS): Gas chromatograph Agilent 5890 linked to an Agilent 5975 Mass Spectrometer detector.

7. Gas chromatography-atomic fluorescence detection (GC-AFS): Gas chromatograph (GC-2010 Shimadzu) coupled to an atomic fluorescence detector (Millenium Merlin, P.S. Analytical) via a pyrolysis unit (GC-AFS).

8. Liquid chromatography (LC-UV-FLD): High resolution liquid chromatography (Agilent 1200 SL) with UV and fluorescence detector.

9. Liquid chromatography (LC-UV-FLD-ECD): A Shimadzu model LC-10AD HPLC coupled to a RF-10AXL fluorescence, diode-array detector and electrochemical detector.

10. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS): A Thermo FinniganTM Surveyor® Plus HPLC system with diode-array detector and ion trap detector. Chrom Quest 5.0 software.

11. Liquid chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC-MS) Quadrupole Time of Flight system (Agilent 6546) with Jet stream ESI ion source coupled with Liquid Chromatograph (Agilent Infinity LC 1260).

12. Liquid chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC/Q-TOF) (Agilent 6530) with ESI (agilent) and DART (ion sense) sources.

13. Asymmetric Flow-Field Flow Fractionation (AF4): Asymmetric Flow Field Flow Fractionation (AF2000, Post Nova) with UV-Vis (Postnova 3212), Fluorescence (Postnova 3411) and MALS (Postnova 3609) detectors.

14. Liquid Ion chromatography: High-performance ion chromatography system with chemical suppression (761 Compact IC Metrohm).

15. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) systems: (i) Thermo Electron Model XSeries II system equipped with a collision cell (CCT), (ii) iCAP TQ (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and (iii) 7900 ICP-MS (Agilent technologies).

16. Atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS): Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (Spectra AA Varian).

17. Fluorescence: Photon Technology International (PTI) Inc. Quanta Master 40 spectrofluorometer.

18. Spectrophotometry (UV-Vis): V-630 UV/Vis Spectrophotometer equipped with a 10-mm flow cell holder.

19. Two DLS instruments: Zetasizer nanoZS (Malvern Preanalytical).

20. System for reactions in supercritical fluid media (SFE): < Home-made equipment that consists of a GC oven and a high-pressure reactor to carry out reactions in supercritical CO2.

21. Closed-vessel microwave oven: A laboratory microwave system (Ethos Plus; Milestone) equipped with temperature and pressure feedback control.

22. Potentiostac metrohm: A potentiostac metrohm equipment with glass carbon and mercury electrodes.

23. Electrochemical detectors: Three CH Instruments electrochemical detectors with flow cells detection (Models 812D and 842D).