Temperature-programmed packed capillary liquid chromatography coupled to Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy

Temperature-programmed packed capillary liquid chromatography has been coup led off-line to Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, utilizing a commer cially available interface with a pneumatic nebulizer rebuilt to handle low flow rates at elevated temperatures. The modified interface showed excelle nt performance with regard to nonaqueous reversed phase separations of poly mer additives, resulting in constructed Gram-Schmidt chromatograms comparab le to chromatograms obtained using UV detection. The spray of the in-house constructed nebulizer was not influenced by temperature changes of the colu mn effluent, and hence temperature-programmed gradient separations could be used successfully, The relative standard deviation of peak height was 4.4% (n = 5) and the mass limit of detection was determined to be about 40 ng, using a polymer antioxidant as model compound. The present instrumental cou pling has been used for characterization of the antioxidant Irgafos P-EPQ.