High performance liquid chromatography limitations

Lab-on-a-chip/high-performance liquid chromatography Limit of detection... 

High-performance liquid chromatography is in some respects more versatile than gas chromatography since (a) it is not limited to volatile and thermally stable samples, and (b) the choice of mobile and stationary phases is wider. 

In the first chapter, I have discussed the limitations of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and mass spectrometry when used in isolation and how the combination of the two allows these to be overcome. In this chapter, the effect of combining the two techniques with regard to the individual performance characteristics are explored. 

In this chapter, the reader has been introduced to the analytical advantages to be gained by linking high performance liquid chromatography to mass spectrometry with particular regard to the limitations of the two techniques when they are used independently. 

In modern times, most analyses are performed on an analytical instrument for, e.g., gas chromatography (GC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ultra-violet/visible (UV) or infrared (IR) spectrophotometry, atomic absorption spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), mass spectrometry. Each of these instruments has a limitation on the amount of an analyte that they can detect. This limitation can be expressed as the IDL, which may be defined as the smallest amount of an analyte that can be reliably detected or differentiated from the background on an instrument. 

In addition to GC/MS, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC/MS) has been used to analyse natural resins in ancient samples, particularly for paint varnishes containing mastic and dammar resins [34]. A partial limitation of chromatographic techniques is that they do not permit the analysis of the polymeric fraction or insoluble fraction that may be present in the native resins or formed in the course of ageing. Techniques based on the direct introduction of the sample in the mass spectrometer such as direct temperature resolved mass spectrometry (DTMS), direct exposure mass spectrometry (DE-MS) and direct inlet mass spectrometry (DI-MS), and on analytical pyrolysis (Py-GC/MS), have been employed as complementary techniques to obtain preliminary information on the... 

Similar comments apply in the case of organics in seawater, because it has now become possible to resolve the complex mixtures of organics in seawater and achieve the required very low detection limits. Only since the advent of sample preconcentration and mass spectrometry coupled with gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography, and possibly derivatisa-tion of the original sample constituents to convert them into a form suitable for chromatography, has this become possible. 

Despite its potential importance, formic acid has proven difficult to quantify at submicromolar levels in non-saline water samples. Formidable analytical difficulties are associated with its detection in highly saline samples. Ion exclusion, anion exchange, and reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography techniques based on the direct detection of formic acid in aqueous samples are prone to interferences (especially from inorganic salts) that ultimately limit the sensitivity of these methods. 

As a consequence of the previous considerations Kieber et al. [75] have developed an enzymic method to quantify formic acid in non-saline water samples at sub-micromolar concentrations. The method is based on the oxidation of formate by formate dehydrogenase with corresponding reduction of /3-nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (j6-NAD+) to reduced -NAD+(/3-NADH) jS-NADH is quantified by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography with fluorimetric detection. An important feature of this method is that the enzymic reaction occurs directly in aqueous media, even seawater, and does not require sample pre-treatment other than simple filtration. The reaction proceeds at room temperature at a slightly alkaline pH (7.5-8.5), and is specific for formate with a detection limit of 0.5 im (SIN = 4) for a 200 xl injection. The precision of the method was 4.6% relative standard deviation (n = 6) for a 0.6 xM standard addition of formate to Sargasso seawater. Average re-... 

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