Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography: a hyphenated method withstrong coupling between the two dimensions

Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCXGC) provides a true or thogonal separation system. It is explained and demonstrated that it genera tes a peak capacity that is approximately equal to the product of the peak capacities of the two individual separation systems. The resulting peaks ar e ordered in a two-dimensional plane in bands of compounds with the same ch aracteristics. Quantitation of the separated (groups of) components is fund amentally not different from one-dimensional gas chromatography, but the se nsitivity is far better and true baseline is always available. The two co-o rdinates of each peak in the plane make the identification more reliable. I nstrumental considerations of GCXGC are discussed. The three designs of con temporary GCXGC systems are presented and compared. Although the technique is still very young, a number of applications on complex samples as petrole um and environmental samples have already been reported. Finally, the futur e perspectives of GCXGC are discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All r ights reserved.