Continuous trapping technique

In the dynamic headspace method, the sample is put in a thermal desorption unit in order to desorb the RS a continuous flow of a carrier gas pushes the RS into a trapping system which is refrigerated and where they are accumulated prior to analysis. Then the RS are rapidly desorbed by rapid heating and carried onto the column via the carrier gas. There are different ways to apply this technique. The arrangement when purge gas passes through the sample is often called the purge and trap technique (some other equipment uses the acronym DCI (desorption, concentration, injection)). This method is particularly useful for very low concentrations of RS as the total amount of a substance is extracted and can be applied directly to powders without need to dissolve them. The main drawback is that the dynamic headspace methods are not readily automated. ... 

Table 1 summarizes the limits of detection of a number of hydride forming elements reported for the various generation-detection methods. For comparison with continuous sampling techniques, a 10 ml sample volume has been assumed for in situ trapping in the graphite furnace (although larger volumes are easily accommodated) and a 500 pi volume for FI approaches. It is clear that, despite the small sample... 

This method is very reliable but suffers from the drawback that the lithium aluminum hydride contains carrier carbon that reduces the specific radioactivity. A solid phase technique has also been reported for the synthesis of [ C]methyl iodide (Sarkadi et al. 1997,1998). In an alternative method, that gives higher specific radioactivity, [ C] methane undergoes a free radical iodination in a circulating gas phase while the [ C] methyl iodide formed is continuously trapped on a solid phase to prevent further iodination (Larsen et al. 1997). 

One of the attractive features of SFE with CO2 as the extracting fluid is the ability to directly couple the extraction method with subsequent analytical methods (both chromatographic and spectroscopic). Various modes of on-line analyses have been reported, and include continuous monitoring of the total SFE effluent by MS [6,7], SFE-GC [8-11], SFE-HPLC [12,13], SFE-SFC [14,15] and SFE-TLC [16]. However, interfacing of SFE with other techniques is not without problems. The required purity of the CO2 for extraction depends entirely on the analytical technique used. In the off-line mode SFE takes place as a separate and isolated process to chromatography extracted solutes are trapped or collected, often in a suitable solvent for later injection on to chromatographic instrumentation. Off-line SFE is inherently simpler to perform, since only the extraction parameters need to be understood, and several analyses can be performed on a single extract. Off-line SFE still dominates over on-line determinations of additives-an... 

There are two general types of multidimensional chromatography separation schemes those in which the effluent from one column flows directly on to a second column at some time during the experiment, and those in which some type of trap exists between the two columns to decouple them (off-line mode). The purpose of a trap is often to allow collection of a fixed eluate volume to reconcentrate the analyte zone prior to the second separation step, or to allow a changeover from one solvent system to another. The use of offline multidimensional techniques (conventional sample cleanup) with incompatible mobile phases, is common in the literature, and replacing these procedures with automated on-line multidimensional separations will require continuous development efforts. 

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