Improving enantiomeric resolutions by avoiding peak distortion effects in on-line coupled liquid chromatography to...

In this work, we study the effect of different variables affecting elution profile distortion on the enantiomeric resolution eventually achievable when working with on-line coupled liquid chromatography to gas chromatography (LC-GC). Specifically, the proposed configuration combines achiral reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) and chiral gas chromatography (enantio-GC), with heptakis-(2,3,6-tri-O-methyl)-β-cyclodextrin as enantioselective stationary phase to analyse target fractions transferred (from LC to GC) via the through oven transfer adsorption desorption (TOTAD) interface. The high degree of orthogonality resulting from the combination of two chromatographic columns having very different separation mechanisms (and also requiring mobile phases in distinct physical states), as well as integration of the sample preparation step in the first dimension of the system, significantly contributed to exploit the performance of the proposed two-dimensional approach. Occasional adverse effects, which may result in severe peak distortions during LC-GC analysis and could be explained by flow instabilities due to viscous fingering, are circumvented by using the outstanding capacity of the TOTAD interface for achieving effective elimination of the eluent arriving from the LC preseparation.