Addressing the Challenges to Identification in Gas Chromatography by Increased Resolution and Enhanced Detection...

In the past 15+ years, gas chromatography (GC) has undergone a renaissance in its implementation on the basis of the "disruptive" technology of comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC). With a foundation based upon a two-column GC separation approach, GC×GC significantly alters the classical multidimensional gas chromatography (MDGC) method by employing very fast separation on a second dimension (² D) after a conventional one-dimensional (i.e., single column; 1D) column separation. This allows the experimentalist to apply the advantages of multidimensionality to the total sample rather than to just discrete zones of the 1D separation that characterizes MDGC. This requires a new "language" to describe GC×GC separations, applied to the first dimension (¹ D) and ² D, and consideration of the modulation processes that define the transfer of analyte from the ¹ D to the ² D. The present review is based on the FACS Foundation lectureship of the author given at the 17th Asian Chemical Congress of the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS). The award lecture and this manuscript is based on material deriving largely from research in the area of MDGC and GC×GC separations of the author.