Liner as the Key of Injection Optimization in Pesticide Analysis

Regulations for pesticide residue analysis in food require very low detection limits; thus requiring maximum sensitivity in the gas chromatographic determination. This is accomplished by an overall method optimisation, which includes optimisation of injector parameters. Here we study the effect of the inlet liner design on the optimisation by comparing five liner designs in splitless and pulsed splitless injection modes, using a test mixture of fifteen pesticides analyzed by GC-ECD. Possible links between the injection parameters and liner types were evaluated, with the result that, accurate choice of inlet liner and injection parameters can reduce detection limits by up to 300%. Revised: 25 October 2005 and 9 January 2006