Open-tubular Capillary Liquid Research Articles

The application of ‘Z’-shaped UV cells in open-tubular capillary column liquid chromatography

‘Z’-shaped UV cells for packed capillary columns cannot be used in open-tubular capillary column liquid chromatography (OT-LC) because of their relatively large volume. With post-column solvent make-up, a commercial ‘Z’-shaped cell (volume 100 nl) was used in our OT-LC system, resulting in 9-fold sensitivity increase against on-column UV detection and with little efficiency loss. A small volume (5 nl) ‘Z’-shaped cell allows the direct coupling of the cell to high efficiency columns. For dilute samples, 9-19-fold sensitivity enhancement could be obtained. However, column efficiency decreases with increasing signal level as a result of peak deformation.