Efficiency through combining high-performance liquid chromatography and high resolution gas chromatography: progress 1995–1999

Progress during the last 5 years in on-line LC–GC and related techniques is reviewed. In normal-phase LC–GC, the wire interface proved to have advantages over the loop type interface. Further investigations on the solvent evaporation process in an uncoated precolumn under conditions of an early vapour exit revealed that the rules for the transfer by the retention gap techniques must be modified. For reversed-phase LC–GC, approaches with a phase transfer compete with direct evaporation. Eluents were extracted into a bed of Tenax located in a programmed-temperature vaporiser and thermally desorbed. Direct evaporation is possible when a hot vaporising chamber is used and solvent/solute separation occurs in a separate compartment, a coated precolumn possibly in combination with packed beds. As a future strategy, LC–GC transfer techniques should be adjusted to those of large volume injection and involve a single device. It is believed that on-column injection/transfer is the choice. This requires that concurrent evaporation in LC–GC is performed by the on-column interface.