GC × GC temperature programming requirements to produce bilinear data for chemometric analysis

Abstract

A diaphragm valve-based comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC × GC) instrument with the two columns under independent temperature control is demonstrated. A fifteen-component mixture of alkanes, alkyl aromatics, ketones, and alcohols was separated using this system in only 45 s. Independent temperature control of the two columns allows for high-speed analysis of complex samples while retaining the bilinear data structure that is necessary to apply many chemometric peak-resolving methods. An important part of high-speed GC × GC is sharp injections onto the second column. In this work, 10-ms peak widths on the second column are demonstrated. A peak capacity per time of 240 peaks/min was readily achieved. This work is aimed at providing a high-speed GC system for the quantitative and qualitative analysis of complex process streams, such as natural products.