Most current chromatographic instrumentation has been designed for stationary use on a laboratory bench; however, this situation is rapidly changing as analysts become more interested in smaller systems, faster analysis and portability. Portability can merely provide easy movement within the laboratory to facilitate coupling to other instruments or apparatus, or can allow transport to remote locations where environments are harsher than in a laboratory. On-site analysis eliminates problems related to loss of sample integrity during transport and storage, and greatly reduces the time required for testing and reporting. With respect to both gas chromatography (GC) and liquid chromatography (LC), electrical power usage, and column robustness and interfacing have become the most difficult challenges, especially when the preeminent desire is to retain high chromatographic performance. Advances in resistive heating technologies and microchip column formats have been made to address requirements for portable GC, but interfacing and temperature uniformity can be a challenge. In LC, nano-flow capillary columns have been developed, but minimizing detrimental extra-column volumes in connections and developing sensitive detection for small columns are difficult challenges. For both GC and LC, sample preparation and injection into the chromatograph are the most difficult and time-consuming operations.  In this presentation, advancements in portable GC, GC-MS and nano-flow LC by the authors will be described. These include microchip column technologies and novel temperature programming techniques for high temperature GC, calibration and sampling for portable GC-MS, “plug-and-play” column cartridges for nanoflow LC, and serial LC column arrangements with dual-wavelength on-column UV-absorption detection for positive target analyte detection.

Portable chromatography for environmental analysis

2019 Spring National Meeting

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