Abstract: | Kaiser's “abt” concept rests on the experimental establishment of a linear relation between band width at half height, b0.5, and capacity ratio, k, according to His column specification quantity, hreal, is dependent on the square of the slope a, obtained from a linear regression analysis based on this relation. It is shown in the present paper that an improvement of the experimental conditions leading to a lower extra-column contribution to band broadening, b, introduces a tendency towards a negative curvature in the plot at low k values. The mean slope increases, and an uncritical linear regression would yield an hreal-value which is higher than before and which would be in the opposite direction to the requirements of a reliable column specification. Generally the linear regression analysis has to be moved to higher k regions in cases of curvature, especially as it is also shown that hreal is an estimation of the traditional HETP value, H∞, that would be obtained when k approaches infinity. This theoretically expected relation is a strong motivation for the use of hreal as a column specification, since the b0.5-value associated with H∞ is expected to be practically independent of b. |