Liquid chromatography, low

Liquid chromatography, having a resolving power generally less than that of gas phase chromatography, is often employed when the latter cannot be used, as in the case of samples containing heat-sensitive or low vapor-pressure compounds. 

For mixture.s the picture is different. Unless the mixture is to be examined by MS/MS methods, usually it will be necessary to separate it into its individual components. This separation is most often done by gas or liquid chromatography. In the latter, small quantities of emerging mixture components dissolved in elution solvent would be laborious to deal with if each component had to be first isolated by evaporation of solvent before its introduction into the mass spectrometer. In such circumstances, the direct introduction, removal of solvent, and ionization provided by electrospray is a boon and puts LC/MS on a level with GC/MS for mixture analysis. Further, GC is normally concerned with volatile, relatively low-molecular-weight compounds and is of little or no use for the many polar, water soluble, high-molecular-mass substances such as the peptides, proteins, carbohydrates, nucleotides, and similar substances found in biological systems. LC/MS with an electrospray interface is frequently used in biochemical research and medical analysis. 

The solvents used for liquid chromatography are the commoner ones such as water, acetonitrile, and methanol. For the reasons just stated, it is not possible to put them straight into the ion source without problems arising. On the other hand, the very viscous solvents that qualify as matrix material are of no use in liquid chromatography. Before the low-boiling-point eluant from the LC column is introduced into the ion source, it must be admixed with a high-boiling-point matrix... 

These factors make it necessary to reduce the amount of solvent vapor entering the flame to as low a level as possible and to make any droplets or particulates entering the flame as small and of as uniform a droplet size as possible. Desolvation chambers are designed to optimize these factors so as to maintain a near-constant efficiency of ionization and to flatten out fluctuations in droplet size from the nebulizer. Droplets of less than 10 pm in diameter are preferred. For flow rates of less than about 10 pl/min issuing from micro- or nanobore liquid chromatography columns, a desolvation chamber is unlikely to be needed. 

Ion Exchange Resins - Spectra/Gel Ion Exchange resins are ion exchange media for use in low-pressure liquid chromatography. They are based on a polystyrene/divinylbenzene support and are available for both anion and cation exchange applications. This site will give you a reasonable... 

This equation is based on experience with liquid chromatography of low molecular weight samples displaying single peaks. Its application for the GPC of polymers, however, contains a disadvantage, as it mixes two inseparable properties the retention difference for the separation and the peak width for the contrary effect of band broadening. Such a procedure is acceptable if both effects are accessible for an experimental examination. For the GPC experiment, we do not possess polymer standards, consisting of molecules that are truly monodisperse. Therefore, we cannot determine the real peak width necessary for a reliable and reproducible peak resolution R,. This equation then is not qualified for a sufficient characterization of a GPC column. 

The coupling of low-resolution liquid chromatography (or SPE) to liquid chromatography has been widely applied to environmental analysis because of the improvement in sensitivity. 

One of the first examples of the application of reverse-phase liquid chromatography-gas chromatography for this type of analysis was applied to atrazine (98). This method used a loop-type interface. The mobile phase was the most important parameter because retention in the LC column must be sufficient (there must be a high percentage of water), although a low percentage of water is only possible when the loop-type interface is used to transfer the LC fraction. The authors solved this problem by using methanol/water (60 40) with 5% 1-propanol and a precolumn. The experimental conditions employed are shown in Table 13.2. 

Purification of poloxamers has been extensively investigated due to their use in medical applications, the intention often being to remove potentially toxic components. Supercritical fluid fractionation and liquid fractionation have been used successfully to remove low-molecular weight impurities and antioxidants from poloxamers. Gel filtration, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and ultrafiltration through membranes are among the other techniques examined [5]. 

The upper curve shows the adsorption isotherm that normally occurs in liquid chromatography separations where the concentration of solute in the system is very low. The isotherm is linear and thus the distribution coefficient is constant at all concentrations of solute in either phase. It follows that as the peak velocity is inversely related to the distribution coefficient, all solute concentrations travel at the same velocity through the column and the peak is symmetrical. 

Postigo C, Lopez De Alda MJ, Barcelo D (2008) Fully automated determination in the low nanogram per liter level of different classes of drugs of abuse in sewage water by on-line solid-phase extraction-liquid chromatography-electrospray-tandem mass spectrometry. Anal Chem 80(9) 3123-3134... 

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