Supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry: A potentially useful technique for porphyrin analysis

Abstract

Supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry (SFC-MS) and related analytical techniques offer the potential of making significant contributions to the analysis and characterization of geoporphyrins in complex matrices. The combination of a chromatographic separation method with mass spectrometric detection provides a powerful tool as evidenced by the dominance of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) for the characterization of amenable compounds. The favorable physical properties and high solvating powers of supercritical fluids allow separation of less-volatile and higher-molecular-weight compounds generally restricted to liquid chromatography with separation efficiency per unit time and chromatographic resolution approaching that of gas chromatography. Furthermore, mild operating temperatures (determined by the choice of mobile phase) allow application to thermally labile compounds that cannot generally be addressed by GC. The potential advantages of SFC-MS for porphyrin analysis and the results from preliminary porphyrin analyses are described in this paper.