| Popis: |
The coupling of an ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) device to a gas chromatography (GC) column is not popular among research and routine labs mainly due to the lack of knowledge of the potential of this hyphenation. An ion mobility spectrometer can be interfaced to the exit of a GC column as a sensitive detector but nowadays it is not a coupling offer for the main GC companies. However, the robustness of the coupling has already been demonstrated in some scientific works so it is expected that, in a close future, leading companies in the chromatographic sector also offer IMS as an alternative among detectors that can be coupled to their GC.For IMS users, the coupling of a GC column to an IMS instrument improves selectivity and the retention time obtained from this setup can be used as an additional measure for the identification of the detected compounds by IMS. For GC users, an IMS detector provides responses similar than those obtained with a FID, although IMS provide more sensitivity than FID in most cases. GC-IMS data include an additional separation dimension providing both retention time and drift time of the analytes which increases the accuracy of the qualitative analysis. The data obtained represent a tridimensional map. When the aim of the measurements is qualitative analysis, statistical procedures are usually employed to sample classification, discrimination, and marker detection. There are many examples in the literature to demonstrate the potential of GC-IMS for non-targeted approaches such as in food fingerprinting. Conversely, calibrations can be used when the purpose is a quantitative analysis but it is not the strength of this coupling. |
