Solvent injection techniques

Solvent Injection The solvent injection technique involves the injection of solutions of lipid in solvents with high vapor pressure (ether, fluorocarbons, ethanol) into excess aqueous phase under reduced pressure. In general, the aqueous phase is maintained above the phase transition of the lipids (Te) and a reduced pressure... 

Cool on-column injection is used for trace analysis. Ah. of the sample is introduced without vaporization by inserting the needle of the syringe at a place where the column has been previously stripped of hquid phase. The injection temperature must be at or below the boiling point of the solvent carrying the sample. Injection must be rapid and no more than a very few, usuahy no more than two, microliters may be injected. Cool on-column injection is the most accurate and reproducible injection technique for capihary chromatography, but it is the most difficult to automate. 

An on-line supercritical fluid chromatography-capillary gas chromatography (SFC-GC) technique has been demonstrated for the direct transfer of SFC fractions from a packed column SFC system to a GC system. This technique has been applied in the analysis of industrial samples such as aviation fuel (24). This type of coupled technique is sometimes more advantageous than the traditional LC-GC coupled technique since SFC is compatible with GC, because most supercritical fluids decompress into gases at GC conditions and are not detected by flame-ionization detection. The use of solvent evaporation techniques are not necessary. SFC, in the same way as LC, can be used to preseparate a sample into classes of compounds where the individual components can then be analyzed and quantified by GC. The supercritical fluid sample effluent is decompressed through a restrictor directly into a capillary GC injection port. In addition, this technique allows selective or multi-step heart-cutting of various sample peaks as they elute from the supercritical fluid... 

Processes based on fluidized bed coating have been developed (49). In this process, the bioactive agent is dissolved in an organic solvent along with the polymer. This solution is then processed through a Wurster air suspension coater apparatus to form the final microcapsule product. A solvent partition technique based on continuous injection of a polymer-drug solution into flowing mineral oil has been reported (50). 

Solid samples are usually dissolved in a suitable solvent and injected as described for liquids. Alternatively, the se ples can be encapsulated in glass capillaries which are then pushed or dropped into the heated injection block and crushed by a mechanical device [32,33]. This form of injection is particularly useful for the analysis of trace volatiles which would be hidden in the solvent front with conventional injection techniques. 

Solubilizing all or part of a sample matrix by contacting with liquids is one of the most widely used sample preparation techniques for gases, vapors, liquids or solids. Additional selectivity is possible by distributing the sample between pairs of immiscible liquids in which the analyte and its matrix have different solubilities. Equipment requirements are generally very simple for solvent extraction techniques. Table 8.2 [4,10], and solutions are easy to manipulate, convenient to inject into chromatographic instruments, and even small volumes of liquids can be measured accurately. Solids can be recovered from volatile solvents by evaporation. Since relatively large solvent volumes are used in most extraction procedures, solvent impurities, contaminants, etc., are always a common cause for concern [65,66]. 

Many of the classical techniques used in the preparation of samples for chromatography are labour-intensive, cumbersome, and prone to sample loss caused by multistep manual manipulations. During the past few years, miniaturisation has become a dominant trend in analytical chemistry. At the same time, work in GC and UPLC has focused on improved injection techniques and on increasing speed, sensitivity and efficiency. Separation times for both techniques are now measured in minutes. Miniaturised sample preparation techniques in combination with state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation result in faster analysis, higher sample throughput, lower solvent consumption, less manpower in sample preparation, while maintaining or even improving limits. 

Gas chromatographic analysis starts with introduction of the sample on the column, with or without sample preparation steps. The choice of inlet system will be dictated primarily by the characteristics of the sample after any preparation steps outside the inlet. Clearly, sample preparation has a profound influence on the choice of injection technique. For example, analysts may skip the solvent evaporation step after extraction by eliminating solvent in the inlet with splitless transfer into the column. Sample introduction techniques are essentially of two types conventional and programmed temperature sample introduction. Vogt et al. [89] first described the latter in 1979. Injection of samples, which... 

The advent of high-resolution capillary gas chromatography (HR-CGC) with on-column injection has resulted in improved GC analysis of polymer additives [92-94]. The solution of the additive mixture is injected directly into the cold end of the capillary column by means of a cold injector. Thus, sample discrimination, the instantaneous evaporation of the sample solvent, is avoided. The nonvaporising, on-column injection combined with very high resolution of the capillary columns allows accurate separation, identification and quantification of additives of complex mixtures. With the solvent venting technique, the sample is introduced into the column without splitting and sample concentrations... 

A similar technique, the so-called spontaneous emulsification solvent diffusion method, is derived from the solvent injection method to prepare liposomes [161]. Kawashima et al. [162] used a mixed-solvent system of methylene chloride and acetone to prepare PLGA nanoparticles. The addition of the water-miscible solvent acetone results in nanoparticles in the submicrometer range this is not possible with only the water-immiscible organic solvent. The addition of acetone decreases the interfacial tension between the organic and the aqueous phase and, in addition, results in the perturbation of the droplet interface because of the rapid diffusion of acetone into the aqueous phase. 

The procedure chosen for the preparation of lipid complexes of AmB was nanoprecipitation. This procedure has been developed in our laboratory for a number of years and can be applied to the formulation of a number of different colloidal systems liposomes, microemulsions, polymeric nanoparticles (nanospheres and nanocapsules), complexes, and pure drug particles (14-16). Briefly, the substances of interest are dissolved in a solvent A and this solution is poured into a nonsolvent B of the substance that is miscible with the solvent A. As the solvent diffuses, the dissolved material is stranded as small particles, typically 100 to 400 nm in diameter. The solvent is usually an alcohol, acetone, or tetrahydrofuran and the nonsolvent A is usually water or aqueous buffer, with or without a hydrophilic surfactant to improve colloid stability after formation. Solvent A can be removed by evaporation under vacuum, which can also be used to concentrate the suspension. The concentration of the substance of interest in the organic solvent and the proportions of the two solvents are the main parameters influencing the final size of the particles. For liposomes, this method is similar to the ethanol injection technique proposed by Batzii and Korn in 1973 (17), which is however limited to 40 mM of lipids in ethanol and 10% of ethanol in final aqueous suspension. 

Solvent extraction can be automated in continuous-flow analysis. For both conventional AutoAnalyzer and flow-injection techniques, analytical methods have been devised incorporating a solvent extraction step. In these methods, a peristaltic pump dehvers the hquid streams, and these are mixed in a mixing coil, often filled with glass ballotini the phases are subsequently separated in a simple separator which allows the aqueous and organic phases to stratify. One or both of these phases can then be resampled into the analyser manifold for further reaction and/or measurement. The sample-to-extractant ratio can be varied within the limits normally applying to such operations, but the maximum concentration factor consistent with good operation is normally about 3 1. 

In a recent study, as the first trial case, a liquid injection technique was applied to a dry blending system (25). This introductory application concerns the study of the interaction of particles with injected liquid (solvent, polymer solution, colloidal solution, etc.) and will be reported elsewhere. 

The handling and disposal problems associated with the use of liquid solvent extractors have resulted in increased attention to the separation and preconcentration of organic compounds in water by collection in synthetic polymers followed by elution with an organic solvent (2). For example, selective collection and concentration of organic bases on methylacrylic ester resin from dilute water samples have been reported (3). Such collection techniques are especially well-suited to flow-injection measurement techniques. In this study, ionizable organic analytes such as salicylic acid and 8-hydroxyquinoline (oxine) were extracted into a polymer and then back extracted by an aqueous solution. Amperometric measurement using a flow-injection technique was employed to monitor the process. 

Automatic headspace samplers are available from manufacturers of gas chromatographs. These devices are based on the technique of sampling an amount of vapor above the sample itself. Samples are sealed, neat or in a suitable solvent, in containers, and hold at a preset temperature in a thermostatted liquid bath. The headspace vapor results as a partition equilibrium is established between the liquid or solid and the gaseous phase of the volatiles. As each sample is presented to the analyzer, the vessel is punctured and a portion of the headspace gas is withdrawn by a pneumatic injection technique and forced into the column. The main application for those samplers is in the routine analysis of low-boiling fractions in samples containing nonvolatile solids or high-boiling components. Some of the more popular applications today are ... 

There are three injection techniques for introducing a sample into a GC equipped with a capillary column split injection, splitless injection, and on-column injection. Split injection is the most often used injection technique. When a certain amount of FAME sample (1 to 3 ll) is introduced into the GC injector that is normally set at a temperature much higher than the boiling point of the solvent, the solvent vaporizes instantly in the carrier gas and creates a large volume of gas that contains all of the injected FAME in it. The carrier gas that contains the FAME is then divided into two streams from the injector one is directed onto the column, and the second is vented to the atmosphere, clearing the sample out of the injection chamber momentarily. This way, only a limited amount of sample is introduced into the column, to avoid column overloading, and injection time is short, to avoid peak broadening. 

One of the major drawbacks of liposomes is related to their preparation methods [3,4]. Liposomes for topical delivery are prepared by the same classic methods widely described in the literature for preparation of these vesicles. The majority of the liposome preparation methods are complicated multistep processes. These methods include hydration of a dry lipid film, emulsification, reverse phase evaporation, freeze thaw processes, and solvent injection. Liposome preparation is followed by homogenization and separation of unentrapped drug by centrifugation, gel filtration, or dialysis. These techniques suffer from one or more drawbacks such as the use of solvents (sometimes pharmaceutically unacceptable), an additional sizing process to control the size distribution of final products (sonication, extrusion), multiple-step entrapment procedure for preparing drug-containing liposomes, and the need for special equipment. 

On-column injection is preferred to splitless injection that exposes the injected compounds to high temperatures. In on-column injection the injection temperature is usually about 10 °C below the boiling point of the solvent in order to get the best chromatography. Thus, on-column injection is a gentle injection technique suitable for less stable compounds. 

By using solvent polarity techniques to increase k we can push the load to 20 mg. Going isocratic and using shave/recycle, the load can be increased to 100 mg with column overload occurring at 200-300 mg injections. 

Splitless injection involves keeping the injector split vent closed during the time the sample is deposited on the column, after which the vent is reopened and the inlet purged with carrier gas. In splitless injection, the inlet temperature is elevated with respect to the column temperature. The sample is focused at the head of the column with the aid of the solvent effect. The solvent effect is the vaporization of sample and solvent matrix in the injection port, followed by trapping of the analyte in the condensing solvent at the head of the column. This trapping of the analyte serves to refocus the sample bandwidth and is only achieved after proper selection of the solvent, column and injector temperatures. Splitless injection techniques have been reviewed in References 29 and 30. 

Another alternative technique, solid-phase microextraction (SPME), was used for the determination of fluoxetine [79] and several TCAs [80], SPME is a miniaturized and solvent-free technique, where analytes are extracted from the sample by adsorption on a thin polymer coating fixed to the solid surface of a fiber, located inside an injection needle or a capillary. Its main disadvantage is that special strategies are needed to couple SPME to the LC-MS analysis. 

The precision and accuracy of the analytical methods depends strongly on the desorption efficiency which is the percent removal of contaminent from the collection media. An Electron Capture detector will definitely increase the accuracy of chlorinated species. Precision is increased by using the solvent flush technique of sample injection. 

Solid phase micro-extraction (SPME) allows isolation and concentration of volatile components rapidly and easily without the use of a solvent. These techniques are independent of the form of the matrix liquids, solids and gases can be sampled quite readily. SPME is an equilibrium technique and accurate quantification requires that the extraction conditions be controlled carefully. Each chemical component will behave differently depending on its polarity, volatility, organic/water partition coefficient, volume of the sample and headspace, speed of agitation, pH of the solution and temperature of the sample (Harmon, 2002). The techniques involve the use of an inert fiber coated with an absorbant, which govern its properties. Volatile components are adsorbed onto a suitable SPME fiber (which are usually discriminative for a range of volatile components), desorbed in the injection chamber and separated by a suitable GC column. To use this method effectively, it is important to be familiar with the factors that influence recovery of the volatiles (Reineccius, 2002). 

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