ASSESSMENT OF A THERMOSPRAY INTERFACE FOR THE COUPLING OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID-CHROMATOGRAPHY AND FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED SPECTROMETRY

A thermospray interface has been developed to couple high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometry. The system has been constructed for operation in normal- and reversed-phase HPLC. The HPLC effluent is thermally desolvated and deposited on to a moving metal substrate, which continually transfers the solutes into the diffuse reflectance (DRIFT) accessory of an FT-IR spectrometer, enabling identification by measurement of the IR reflectance spectrum. Various aspects of the interface design have been investigated and optimised, and the interface has been applied to the analysis of several types of compound, with molecular identification being indicated for the antioxidant Irganox 565 at concentrations lower than 50-mu-g ml-1.