Longitudinal Miniaturization of Fiber-Packed Capillary Column in High Temperature Gas Chromatography

Miniaturization of fiber-packed capillary column in gas chromatography was studied. Packed with a bundle of polymer-coated filaments into a short metal capillary, longitudinal miniaturization was demonstrated without any significant disadvantages for practical retentivity and sample loading capacity. With a metal capillary of 0.3 mm i.d., the typical column length could be reduced to be several centimeters. The retentivity for alkanes on the fiber-packed capillary column was compared to that obtained by a conventional open-tubular capillary column of the same length. Taking advantage of the heat-resistant property of both the fiber and the metal capillary, the separation of a polystyrene mixture on the polymer-coated fiber-packed short metal capillary column with a temperature-programmed run up to 400 °C was successfully carried out. As the typical application, rapid GC separations were also carried out with the short column of 0.05 m length.