2.6 Summary
This chapter focused on the use of gas chromatography. A variety of separation columns and detectors allow the analysis of a diverse set of chemical structures and the separation of complex mixtures of chemicals. Advances in technology have increased the utility of GC analysis and automated instrument controls have greatly decreased the cost of analysis by decreasing labor costs. GC allows the relatively rapid analysis of analytes present in high concentrations, such as in product quality assurance/quality control and in product identification, as well as in the analysis of trace analysis such as the identity of pollutants in environmental media and confirmation of medicines or illicit drugs in human samples. As noted several times in this chapter, GC is used to analyte volatile, thermally stable compounds, and in general cannot be used to analyze for the more extensive and diverse compounds found in biological systems. These compounds are typically analyzed for by HPLC, the subject of the next chapter. Later, in Chapter 5, GC, HPLC and CE will be coupled with MS, the ultimate detector since it allows immediate confirmatory identification. Identification by fragmentation pattern in GC analysis is the subject of Chapter 6.
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