Analytical applications of reversed-flow gas chromatography

Abstract

The technique of reversed-flow gas chromatography can be used to solve problems in analytical chemistry, e.g., measurement of the broadening factors in gas chromatography, calibration of gas chromatographic detectors, measurement of activity coefficients and non-equilibrium headspace analysis. The method is basically a kinetic technique, but using the rates of physical processes rather than the rates of chemical reactions. It is a flow perturbation method, based on reversing the direction of flow of the carrier gas for definite time intervals. The experimental set-up is very simple and needs only a slight modification of a conventional gas chromatograph, equipped with any kind of detector.