Gas Chromatography BT - Food Analysis

Abstract

Gas chromatography (GC) has been used for the determination of a wide range of food components, but it is ideally suited to the analysis of thermally stable volatile substances. The outstanding resolving properties of GC and the wide variety of detectors contribute to the sensitivity or selectivity in analysis. This chapter discusses details of GC sample preparation, hardware, columns, and chromatographic theory as it is uniquely applied to GC. Sample preparation generally involves the isolation of solutes from foods, which may be accomplished by headspace analysis, distillation, preparative chromatography, or extraction. Some analytes can then be directly analyzed, while others must be derivatized prior to analysis to increase volatility or temperature stability. The GC consists of a gas supply and regulators (pressure and flow control), injection port, column and column oven, detector, electronics, and a data recording and processing system. The analyst must be knowledgeable about the characteristics of each of these GC components and understand basic chromatographic theory to balance the properties of resolution, capacity, speed, and sensitivity. New GC developments and applications will likely be related to multidimensional GC.