Detectors response changes

Practical understanding and appreciation of detector saturation limits are critical when using any of the aforementioned detectors. The saturation limit can be defined as the point at which a nonlinear detector response is observed with an increase in ion concentration. The saturation characteristics of a detector can be proportional to concentration up to a critical point, at which no additional signal can be obtained, or can be nonlinear, where detector response changes with concentration but in a nonlinear way. 

Noise is defined as the change in detector response over a period of time in the absence of analyte. 

It is important for obtaining precise results that the signals from the samples to be determined should lie on the linear part of the calibration graph as elsewhere within the dynamic range a small change in detector response corresponds to a relatively large range of concentrations. 

Potentiometry is the measurement of the potential at an electrode or membrane electrode, so the detector response is in units of volts. The potentio-metric response tends to be slow, so potentiometry is used infrequently in analysis.47 One example is the use of a polymeric membrane impregnated with ionophores for the selective detection of potassium, sodium, ammonium, and calcium 48 In process chromatography, potentiometry may be used to monitor selected ions or pH as these values change over the course of the gradient. 

Bulk property detectors function by measuring some bulk physical property of the mobile phase, e.g., thermal conductivity or refractive index. As a bulk property is being measured, the detector responses are very susceptible to changes in the mobile phase composition or temperature these devices cannot be used for gradient elution in LC. They are also very sensitive to the operating conditions of the chromatograph (pressure, flow-rate) [31]. Detectors such as TCD, while approaching universality in detection, suffer from limited sensitivity and inability to characterise eluate species. 

D Position Sensitive Detectors are multi-wire electrical-field detectors. The principal limitation of the total counting rate reduces the applicability at a synchrotron beamline in particular for 2D detectors. But even strong, narrow peaks pose a problem, because the whole image is distorted as soon as local saturation occurs. The detector response is changing, because the wires are worn out by use. 

Electrically modulated infrared spectroscopy, ( EMIRS). In all three external reflectance approaches the signal processing technique serves two purposes (a) to remove the contributions to the reflected ray that do not change, e.g. the detector response, the source emission envelope, the solvent,... 

To overcome such a problem, a silicon heater of negligible heat capacity was added to each detector to trim its sensitivity by a slight change of the (detector) temperature around the working temperature (see Section 16.6). Due to the steep dependence on T of the R and C parameters, changes in detector temperatures of the order of 1 mK are needed for the equalization of the detector response. 

The working electrode current (i.e. detector response) is strongly influenced by voltage changes between the electrode and the mobile phase. A constant and known potential difference between the working electrode and the mobile phase is therefore a vital requirement to obtain stable, reproducible and predictable detector response. 

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