A practical comparison of two recent strategies for fast gas chromatography: Packed capillary columns and multicapillary columns

In the present work two new approaches to fast gas chromatography (GC) analysis are evaluated and compared to narrow-bore and conventional-bore columns. The first method uses packed capillary columns. These columns, 0.32 mm in diameter, are packed with spherical octadecylsilica particles with a diameter of 15 mu m A second type of column studied is the multicapillary column. In this column, an excellent sample capacity and a high speed of analysis are combined. The performance of all column types is considered. Given are H/u curves and two practical applications are described. Finally, micropacked capillary columns, multicapillary columns, and narrow-bore columns are compared to conventional standard-bore columns. This comparison includes the main parameters of interest such as sample capacity, detection limit, analysis time, pressure drop, and maximum obtainable plate number. Packed columns and multicapillary columns are very suitable for fast separations of relatively simple samples, (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.