Column Selection and Optimization for Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Gas Chromatography: A Review

Latest Trends on the Future of Three-Dimensional Separations in Chromatography

“…The latter has been discussed in detail in a review by Mommers and van der Wal. 31 Ionic liquidsor liquid saltsare a relatively novel type of stationary-phases, which are commercially available and are claimed to offer several advantages. These include high thermal stability resulting in very low column bleed, a high polarity, and a broad range of applications.…”

“…The use of different columns with retention characteristics makes it important to also consider the order in which the different stationary phases are applied in a column set based on the expected analytes and their anticipated molecular interactions with the stationary-phases. 31 Many examples can be found in literature in which "non-polar × medium-polar × polar" column-sets are used for the analysis of mixtures of small molecules, allergens, or volatile and essential oils derived from natural products. Mostly, these samples concerned less polar analytes in polar matrices.…”

“…Typical peak capacities of 1D-GC separations are of the order of 1000, whereas GC × GC may readily provide peak capacities in excess of 20 000. Multiple reviews on GC × GC have been published recently covering many aspects of the field from application and instrumentation to data analysis. , To further enhance chemical selectivity, it is intriguing to consider higher-order instruments, specifically to provide comprehensive three-dimensional (GC × GC × GC) separations. Notable literature has been summarized in Table , which lists all the online 3D-GC platforms published to our knowledge so far.…”

“…The 2D column may be position in the main oven with the 1D column or in the secondary oven with a 3D column. Mommers and van der Wal investigated how the overall selectivity could be tuned by varying the temperature offset of the secondary oven relative to the main system oven. A temperature program was used in a 3D-GC setup to resolve complex samples that featured a broad range of analyte retention and this was found to aid in the development of a high-throughput 3D-GC system that was fast without showing a significant loss in resolution.…”

“…The stationary phases and column dimensions in a multidimensional system should be selected carefully. The choice of GC × GC column sets has been discussed in many reviews. ,, However, for GC × GC × GC, the stationary-phase chemistry and the order of columns have not been fully investigated to achieve maximal orthogonality. Moreover, the column dimensions and operating conditions (temperature programs, flow rates) have not been optimized to attain the highest possible peak capacity.…”