THE USE OF NONSPLITTING INJECTION TECHNIQUES FOR TRACE ANALYSIS IN NARROW-BORE CAPILLARY GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY

The use of hot splitless, cold splitless, and on-column injections for trace analysis in narrow-bore capillary GC is evaluated. Despite the low flow rates for the columns used, the required splitless times for splitless injections can be surprisingly short if liners with a small inside diameter are used. On-column injection can be applied by using an appropriate normal-bore precolumn coupled to the narrow-bore analyt ical column using a specially designed low dead volume column connecto r. The effects of the experimental conditions such as sample volume, i njection temperature, and initial oven temperature on peak focusing an d the discrimination and degradation behavior of the analytes are disc ussed. The possibilities to obtain sensitive and fast separations are illustrated by various applications.