Coupling static headspace sampling to high-speed gas chromatography

The authors present the coupling of static headspace sampling to highspeed gas chromatography. They also describe their design and evaluation of a new system, which was able to quickly analyze the headspace of a previously eq uilibrated vial. A sample-loop arrangement collected the sample volatiles u sing a stream of nitrogen to transport the headspace contents from the samp le vial to a cold trap. The trap then was placed in-line with the carrier g as and ballistically heated to inject the contents onto the analytical colu mn. The chromatography was performed in approximately 2.5 min, which enable d the separation of 18 analytes ranging from beta-pinene to valencene. The combined sampling and separation steps required less than 4 min. The result ing chromatograms compared favorably with those obtained using a solid-phas e microextraction-based method that required approximately 80 min.