Advances in HPLC detection - towards universal detection

The advances made in the field of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) detection has influenced the general progress and the extent of application of HPLC technology. HPLC detection has become the most widely applied analytical separation techniques because of its superior performance and reliability, especially in the pharmaceutical, environmental, forensic, clinical, food and flavor sciences. Extensive investigations into the use of refractive index (RI) detectors, evaporative light scattering detectors (ELSD) and chemiluminescence nitrogen detectors (CLND) as universal detectors for HPLC have been performed. ELSD detectors detect all the compounds that are less volatile than the mobile phase. ELSD can therefore offer distinct advantages over conventional UV or RI detection, particularly for gradient separations. The response of the ELSD is related to the absolute quantity of the compound and is independent of the analytes' optical properties.