On the determination of a detector response enhancement factor for flow modulated comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography.

Comparison of conventional one-dimensional gas chromatography (1D-GC) and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) shows that the detector signal in GC×GC is significantly enhanced. The value of this enhancement depends on the operating parameters, such as the modulation time and the non-modulated ((1)D column) and corresponding modulated ((2)D column) peak widths. Determination of the enhance factors in flow modulated GC×GC for separation of hydrocarbon samples using flame ionization detection (FM GC×GC-FID) was studied. A term named detector response enhance factor (DREF) has been designed to express the value of the signal enhancement. Two methods were used to calculate DREF: (i) employing (2)D peak height, and (ii) using a theoretical approach. Comparison of FM GC×GC-FID and 1D-GC-FID method illustrates that the DREF increases from 10 to 33 times, in 1-6s modulation time intervals.