Supercritical Fluid Chromatography/Light-Scattering Detector: A Promising Coupling for Polar Compounds Analysis with Packed Column

Abstract

The coupling of carbon dioxide supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) on packed columns with a light-scattering detector (LSD) is investigated. The fused-silica capillary restrictor acts as nebulizer. The temperature of the restrictor and the vaporization tube allows the use of polar modifiers such as methanol in the supercritical CO₂. Detection limit is five times higher than with HPLC. With packed columns, LSD is complementary to the flame ionization detector (FID). Several examples of applications are given.