Bridging the gap between gas and liquid chromatography

Abstract

The rapid and complete baseline separation of both volatile (C5 to C16 alkanes in gasoline or terpenes in plant extracts) and non-volatile (>C20 alkanes) organic compounds was achieved by combining (1) low-density fluid chromatography (LDFC) using carbon dioxide at elevated temperature (>90°C) and low pressure (1500psi) designed to increase the retention of the most volatile compounds and (2) high-vacuum technology (<10−4Torr) in order to preserve the maximum efficiency of short analytical columns (3.0mm×150mm packed with 1.8μm fully porous HSS-SB-C18 particles) when used in LDFC. The volatile compounds are eluted first under isobaric conditions (1500psi) in less than a minute followed by a linear gradient of the column back pressure (from 1500 to 3500psi in 5min) for the elution of the non-volatile compounds up to C40. The experimental results demonstrate that LDFC performed with short 3.0mm i.d. columns packed with sub-2μm particles and placed under adiabatic conditions enables the analysts to deliver a single, fast, and high-resolution separation of both volatile and non-volatile compounds.