Chapter 8 - Ion-exclusion chromatography

Abstract

Ion-exclusion chromatography (ICE) is a specific type of ion chromatography utilized for monitoring the quality of water for partially ionized substances, mainly weak acids or weak bases. This chapter provides an overview of separation and detection methods, and practical applications of ICE. Additionally, the concept of vacancy ICE is described as a further approach to conventional ICE, where the eluent serves as the analyte and pure water is injected as the sample. The simultaneous separation of anions and cations using ICE and ion-exchange chromatography is also described, as well as multicomponent chromatography, which combines different separation modes. Recent studies using ICE have primarily focused on analyzing organic acids in food, such as beverages or wine; amines, nitric acid, silicic acid, or phosphoric acid in environmental samples for water quality assessment; and trace amounts of organic acids in biological samples. While there is a vast amount of information on applied analyses, this chapter focuses on the basic separation principles, the increased detection sensitivity of analytes through postcolumn reactions, and separation methods that express multiple reactions arising from a single column.