High performance liquid chromatography peak broadening

With its different modes of operation, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a most suitable technique for the separation of less volatile, polar, or even ionic analytes. HPLC separation provides a continuous eluent flow of typically up to 1 mL min which can easily be introduced into the nebuHser of a flame AAS system. The interface design generally is a critical factor, since it may induce additional peak broadening which reduces both sensitivity and resolution. 

A typical high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) system consists of two pumps, a mixer, an injector, a guard colunm, a separation column, a detector, an electrospray nozzle, and a mass spectrometer. The two pumps and the mixer allow establishment of desired solvent gradients. The injector is used to inject a small amount of sample into the column. In all separation techniques, definition of a small volume of injected sample is cmcial in preventing adverse broadening of peaks and a consequent loss in compmient resolution. The injected compounds are separated in the separation colunm and then detected via a simple detector or a mass spectrometer. All of the parts of the HPLC system have been miniaturized, and several research groups have been able to demonstrate on-chip HPLC separations. 

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