Is the separation of nitrate and arsenate possible through capillary electrophoresis? If so, why? How would I set up an experiment that would allow me to separate these two constituents in a sample of groundwater?
The answer is yes. However, I am not sure about the sensitivity. Here is an application note from Agilent for the separation of nitrate, nitrite, arsenate, azide etc. calibrated over a 10 ppm concentration from food samples. You can try to preconcentrate your GW sample using an anion exchange sample prep cartridge before you run CE.