Absorbents as packing materials in on-line coupling of reversed phase liquid chromatography and gas chromatography via a programmed temperature vaporizer

A method based on the use of absorbents as packing materials in the interface of the direct coupling between reversed phase liquid chromatography and gas chromatography (RPLC-GC) is proposed. To that end, a comparative study on different adsorbents and absorbents was carried out. Specifically, Tenax TA and Gaschrom were used as adsorbents while polydimethylsiloxane and poly(50% phenyl:50% methylsiloxane) were the absorbents tested. Some experimental variables involved in the solvent elimination were separately optimised for adsorbent and absorbent materials. Relative standard deviations (RSD) lower than 10% were achieved in all cases but the use of absorbents showed interesting advantages with respect to adsorbents, namely a simpler performance of the experimental work, which facilitates the sample preparation step and the subsequent gas chromatographic analysis to be performed. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.