A review of environmental toxicant analysis by using multidimensional gas chromatography and comprehensive GC.

The purpose of this review is to highlight the developments in coupled-column gas chromatography methods for qualitative analysis of selected environmental toxicants such as dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), etc. In particular, the new technique of GC x GC will be introduced, and its role, and the promise it offers to this field is discussed. The benefits of enhanced separation to quantitative analysis will be considered.

A review of basic concepts in comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography.

The technique of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GCxGC) is reviewed. A description of technical aspects of the method illustrates how the GCxGC result is achieved through the use of dual-coupled columns and the modulation of capillary chromatographic peaks. This review presents an expanded section dealing with the relationship between the modulation phase and frequency and the resulting peak pulse profiles.