Fast gas chromatography (GC) has been around ever since the introduction of
capillary GC columns. M. Golay's patent application for capillary GC (Pate
nt 2,920,478, January 12, 1960) showed five peaks in 15 s in 1957. Desty et
al. (Desty, D. H.; Goldup, A.; Swanton, W. T. In Gas Chromatography; Brenn
er, N.; Caller, J. E.; Weiss, M. D., Eds.; Academic: New York, 1962; p. 105
), LeClercq et al. (LeClercq, P. A.; Scherpenzeel, G. J.; Vermeer, E. A. A.
; Cramers, C. A. J Chromatogr 1982, 241, 61-71), and Cramers et al. (Schutj
es, C.; Vermeer, E.; Rijks, J.; Cramers, C. J Chromatogr 1982, 253, 1-16),
among others, followed up this early work on fast GC. The work in this pape
r is a continuation of fast GC, primarily using fast oven temperature progr
amming. This work is restricted to normal pressures, routinely used on Hewl
ett Packard 5890 and 6890 model gas chromatographs. The first step in doing
fast GC is to reduce the column length, since the retention time is direct
ly proportional to the length, only true for isothermal runs. Columns of 1
to 6 m are used and since this step sometimes sacrifices resolution, 100 mu
m inner diameter columns with thin films, 0.1 to 0.2 mu m, are used with s
mall sample sizes (split ratios of 500:1 to 2000:1). (C) 2000 John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.