HPLC Column Switching, a Step Toward the Automation of Sample Cleanup

Abstract

There exists a growing demand for data to meet the pesticide regulation acts and to monitor residues in food and in the environment. Speed and low running cost are very desirable properties of methods used to screen crops or commodities for pesticide residues, therefore evaluation of ways are necessary to carry out the analyses more rapidly and cost-effective. A today status of pesticide residue analysis is given. Weak points of the standard residue analytical procedures are shown. Trace enrichment and multidimensional liquid chromatography are the key-points which are prerequisites to scale down the sample size for the cleanup procedure. Reduction in scale on one hand and transfer of the individual cleanup steps, e.g. filtration, liquid-liquid partitioning, concentration, adsorption chromatography onto mini-columns or cartridges on the other hand, opens the potential to mechanize or automate the prechromatographic sample treatment. Combination of all these different measures will reduce time and cost without the necessity to invest into expensive apparatus.