Determination of ammonium cations and alkali and alkaline earth metal cations in jellyfish by capillary zone electrophoresis.

We developed a capillary zone electrophoresis method with indirect UV detection for determination of ammonium cations and alkali and alkaline earth metal cations in jellyfish. As the background electrolyte, a mixture of N-methylbenzylamine, citrate, and 18-crown-6 was used for the complete separation of all analyte cations. The limits of detection were 0.13 - 0.34 mg l(-1) at a signal-to-noise ratio of three. The values of the relative standard deviation of peak area were 3.2 - 4.9%. The proposed method successfully determined the above analyte cations in jellyfish for approximately 4 min.