World Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Nutan et al. SJIF Impact

World Journal of Pharmaceutical Factor 7.523
Research
Volume 7, Issue 2, 444-455. Review Article ISSN 2277–7105

REVIEW ON GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY & ITS HYPHENATION

TECHNIQUES

Dr. Nutan Rao*1 and Kajal D. Gawde2

1
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Quality Assurance and
Oriental College of Pharmacy, Sanpada, Navi Mumbai-400705.
2
Kajal D. Gawde, Oriental College of Pharmacy, Sanpada, Navi Mumbai-400705.

Article Received on
ABSTRACT
01 Dec. 2017, Gas chromatography is a powerful separation technique for gas and
Revised on 21 Dec. 2017,
Accepted on 12 Jan. 2018, vapour mixtures. Combining, separation and on-line detection permits
DOI: 10.20959/wjpr20182-10757 accurate quantitative analysis of complex mixtures, including traces of
compounds as low as parts per trillion in some particular cases. The
*Corresponding Author importance of gas chromatography in quality control and
Dr. Nutan Rao process control in the chemical and drug industry, in environmental
Assistant Professor, pollution investigations and in clinical analysis is critical. The review
Department of
describes gas chromatography and its hyphenation techniques.
Pharmaceutical Chemistry
and Quality Assurance and
KEYWORDS: Gas Chromatography, Hyphenated Techniques,
Oriental College of
Pharmacy, Sanpada, Navi
Detectors, column, carrier gas.
Mumbai-400705.
INTRODUCTION
A gas chromatograph (GC) is an analytical instrument that is utilized to gauge the substance
of various segments in a sample.[1,2] The investigation performed by a gas chromatograph is
gas chromatography. Gas chromatography (GC) is a common kind of chromatography used
as a piece of analytical science for segregating and investigating exacerbates that can be
vaporized without disintegration. Regular employments of GC are trying the immaculateness
of a particular substance, or separating of the distinctive segments of a blend.[3-6] In a couple
of circumstances, GC may help in identification of a compound. In preparative
chromatography, GC can be used to obtain a pure compound from a blend.

Gas chromatography principle: The principle of separation in GC is “partition”. The

mixture of components to be separated is converted to vapour & mixed with gaseous mobile

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phase. The component which is more soluble in stationary phase travel slower & eluted later.
The component which is less soluble in stationary phase travels faster and eluted out first. No
two components has same partition coefficient conditions. So the components are separated
according to their partition coefficient. General schematic diagram of GC is given in Figure
1.

Figure. 1: Schematic diagram of Gas Chromatography.

Physical Components of Gas Chromatography

 Autosamplers
 Inlets
 Detectors

Autosamplers: The autosampler gives the way to bring a sample automatically into the
channels. Manual insertion of the sample is possible but no more common. Programmed
insertion gives good reproducibility and time-improvement.

Inlets: The column inlet (or injector) gives the way to bring a sample into a continuous
stream of carrier gas. The inlet is a piece of equipment appended to the column head The
common inlet sorts are: S/SL (split/splitless) injector, on- column inlet, PTV injector, and
Gas source inlet or gas switching valve, P/T (Purge-and-Trap) system.[7] The decision of
carrier gas (portable stage) is very important. The carrier gas must be chemically inert.

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Generally utilized gasses include nitrogen, helium, argon, and carbon dioxide. The decision
of carrier gas is regularly depend upon the sort of indicator which is utilized. The carrier gas
framework likewise contains an molecular sieve to expel water and different other impurities.
So, helium might be more efficient and give the best separation if flow rates are optimized.
Helium is non-combustible and works with a more prominent number of detectors. Thus,
helium is the most well-known carrier gas utilized. In any case, the cost of helium has gone
up significantly over recent years, causing an expanding number of chromatographers to
change to hydrogen gas.

Detectors: There are numerous detectors which can be utilized as a part of gas
chromatography. Distinctive detectors will give different sorts of selectivity. A non- selective
detector reacts to all mixes aside from the carrier gas, a particular indicator reacts to a range
of compounds with a typical physical or chemical property and a particular detector reacts to
one chemical compound. Detectors can likewise be gathered into concentration dependant
detectors and mass flow dependant detectors. The signal from a concentration dependant
detector is identified with the grouping of solute in the detector, and does not generally crush
the sample dilution with make-up gas will bring down the detectors reaction. Mass flow
dependant detectors ordinarily decimate the sample, and is identified with the rate at which
solute particles enter the detector. The reaction of a mass flow dependant detector is
unaffected by make-up gas. Various types of detectors used in GC are: Mass Spectrometer
(GC/MS), Flame Ionization Detector, Thermal Conductivity Detector, Electron Capture
Detector, Nitrogen-phosphorus detector, Flame photometric detector (FPD) and Photo-
ionization Detector (PID).

Hyphenated Techniques
A Hyphenated technique is combination or coupling of two different analytical techniques
with the help of proper interface. The term hyphenated techniques ranges from the
combination of separation-separation, separation-identification & identification-identification
techniques. The aim of this coupling is obviously to obtain an information-rich detection for
both identification and quantification compared to that with a single analytical technique.

Advantages of hyphenated techniques

1. Fast and accurate analysis.
2. Higher degree of automation
3. Higher sample throughput.

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4. Better reproducibility.
5. Reduction of contamination due to its closed system separation and quantification achieved
at same time.

Following Gas chromatography hyphenated techniques are well known.

1. GC-MS
2. GC-IR
3. GC-NMR
4. GC-AES
5. GC-FTIR
6. GC-MS/MS
7. GC*GC/MS
8. GC-ICP-MS
9. GC-TOF-MS

1. GC-MS: GC is able to separate the volatile and semi volatile compounds but it is unable to
identify them whereas MS can identify the compound by giving its structural information at
molecular level but it is unable to separate them. Therefore, the combination of these two
techniques took place shortly after the development of GC.[9] GC-MS was the first technique
to be hyphenated and this technique can confirm the organic volatile, semi-volatile
compounds and residual solvents with great resolution. For the analysis of the compound by
GC-MS the compound should possess the property such as volatility and thermal stability.[10]
These two techniques are highly compatible with each other, the sample is in the vapour
phase in both the techniques. But there is incompatibility between two techniques i.e. GC is
operated at high pressure (760 torr) and in this the carrier gas is present whereas in case of
mass spectroscopy it operates at a vaccum 10–6 to l0–5 torr.[11]

Instrumentation and Working: When vaporized analyte is carried through the GC column
with the help of heated carrier gas, the separation occurs in column only. Carrier can also be
called as the mobile phase e.g. helium. Distinguishable interactions of analyte between
mobile phase and stationary phase lead to separation of the compounds. The separation of the
analyte also depends on the dimensions of column (length, diameter, film thickness), type of
carrier gas, column temperature (gradient) and the properties of the stationary phase. The
sample travels through the length of the column. The difference in the boiling point and other
chemical properties lead to separation of the components of the mixture. The components

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will be having differences in elution time and retention time due to their different adsorption
or difference in the partition between mobile phase and the stationary phase respectively.
Then the separated components of the mixture will enter into the MS through an interphase.
This is followed by ionization, mass analysis and detection of mass-to charge (m/z) ratios of
ions generated from each analyte by the mass spectrometer. An interface like effusion
separator, jet/orifice separator & membrane separator can be used to connect GC with MS.
The process of ionisation not only ionise the molecule but also break the molecule into the
fragments. Two widely used Ionization techniques in GCMS are the electron impact
ionization (EI) and the alternative chemical ionization (CI) in either positive or negative
modes[16] The molecular ion of analyte form a finger print spectrum which is different from
other analytes. GC-MS is important tool in analytical chemistry because these techniques
accurately separate, identify and provide information about structure and composition using
very less sample. The advantage of this technique is sometimes two different analytes will
have the same mass spectrum but the retention time of both the analytes is different so such
type of analytes can be separated or analysed with the help of GC-MS.

Figure. 2. Schematic diagram of GC-MS.

Applications
1. Quantification of pollutants in drinking and waste water using official U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) methods.
2. Quantification of drug in metabolites and urine is done for the pharmacological and
forensic use.
3. Identification of unknown organic compounds in hazardous waste dumps and reaction
products by synthetic organic chemistry.
4. Used for drug analysis, pesticide and herbicide detection

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2. GC-IR[12]
GC-IR technique is hyphenation of gas chromatography and Infrared spectroscopy. This
technique is very sensitive, very expensive; sample recovery is also possible because IR is a
non-destructive technique. GC carries out the separation part whereas IR performs the
function of identification. Gas chromatography separates components of the analyte. These
components will travel through the column. These two techniques are linked through glass
column or vacuum tubes. Interface used in this technique is internally gold coated small glass
pipe connected to column by narrow tubing. Light pipe is heated in order to get rid of
condensation and maximize path length for enhanced sensitivity. Effluent from GC is directly
forwarded into the heated pipe of IR at atmospheric pressure. Infrared red spectroscopy
identifies the compound by detecting the functional groups.

Figure. 3. Schematic diagram of GC-IR.

Application: In pharmaceutical industry & DNA analysis of blood samples and other fluids.
3. GC-NMR: In this technique the GC is combined with NMR. NMR performs the
identification of the components and GC is used for the separation of the components. The
hyphenation of this technique provides the structural information of the separated
components.[13,14]

Instrumentation: The problem involved in combination of these two techniques is the

physical state of sample. The samples used for analysis are liquid or in solid state in case of
NMR, whereas in GC it is in the gaseous state. If the carrier gas is used for analysis in NMR,
it will show the low Signal to-noise ratio of the signal obtained at atmospheric pressure. To
overcome this sensitivity problem microcells and computers are used to improve the signal-
to-noise ratio.[15] Some other modifications are also performed which include use of stronger
magnets and advanced microprobes.[16] The analytes having boiling point above 65°C are

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condensed in the capillary connection i.e transfer capillary and probe head. This problem can
be solved by use of transfer capillary which will be heated by bifilar coil. This coil is
constructed from zero susceptibility wire which is combined with strong magnetic field.

Applications
1. Constitutional and Configurational isomers can be separated. Enantiomers show the same
spectra at different retention time.
2. Identification of stereoisomers in a complex mixture.

4. GC-AES: This technique is combination of gas chromatography with atomic emission

spectroscopy. Atomic emission spectroscopy is one of the elemental analysis techniques. GC
performs the separation of the components and with the help of AES, the elemental
identification of the components is performed. Elemental composition of every peak
separated by GC is determined.

Instrumentation: In this process, analytes are first atomized using either ICP or microwave
irradiation (high temperatures), where the atoms are transferred to electronically excited state.
Later, these electrons return to the lower energy levels emitting photons at certain
wavelengths that are characteristic of the particular element. In both the techniques, sample is
in gas phase so the techniques are complementary to each other. The GC effluent is directly
introduced into the Quartz atomization furnace via heated nickel transfer line. The interface is
simple but in practice the conditions has to be optimised eg. Quartz furnace, heating with
flame or a thermostat, or using the graphite furnace as the atomization device for obtaining
good sensitivity and selectivity.[17]

Applications
1. Identification and Quantification of the compounds.
2. GC-AES coupled with microwave-induced plasma (MIP) can be used to study organic
polymers and to perform speciation analysis of organotin compounds in human urine. This
provides a method suitable for rapid sensitive screening of human urine samples without
dilution of the sample.

5. GC-FTIR[18]
For novel structures or new chemical entities, it is possible that no matched reference spectra
can be found in MS databases. Manual interpretation of mass spectra requires sound

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knowledge on organic mass spectrometry and dedicated experience and often not possible to
suggest any candidate structures. With the help of the molecular spectroscopy, FT-IR,
information on functional groups or structural moieties with specific infrared absorptions is
complementary to MS and can be very valuable for structure elucidation, as already being
used as stand-alone.

Figure. 4: Schematic diagram of GC-FTIR.

Instrumentation & working: On line GC-FTIR coupling, the effluent from the GC flows
through a heated transfer-line into the light pipe. A schematic drawing of a typical GC-FTIR
is shown in figure. The interferograms are scanned continuously to record either „on-the-fly‟
gas-phase vapour IR spectra or trapped component spectra. This makes it possible to
reconstruct a chromatogram in real time by a vector technique called the Gram-Schmidt
method. After the acquisition is finished, the spectra of each GC peak can be normalized and
searched by comparison with an IR spectra library. The combination of a gas chromatograph
with both FT-IR and MS detectors on one instrument allows the simultaneous measurement
of one peak by two supplementary detections. In fact, at each retention time, two different
chromatograms were obtained. The sample passes the IR detector without destruction and is
registered by the subsequent MS detector.

Application: Used for analysis of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans,

aromatic polymers, petroleum.

6. GC-MS/MS
In this technique the gas chromatography is coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. This
technique is sensitive as well as specific and can be used for ultra-trace analysis. For

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qualitative identification with MS/MS, production scan, precursor ion scan and neutral loss
with a triple quadrupole or product scan with an ion trap can be used. In recent years, the
sensitivity of the quadruplole & the scanning speed has increased.[16]

Applications
1. Identification of trace unknown impurities.
2. Used for determination of contaminations in environment and foods such pesticides and
Poly Chlorinated Biphenyls (PCB‟s) in foods and biological samples.

7. GC*GC-MS
In this technique, two dimensional GC is coupled with mass spectroscopy. This coupling will
lead to the better resolution of the peaks in GC. Sometimes in one dimensional GC, the
analyte is unevenly distributed along the whole retention time.

The two dimensional GC lead to the better resolution. With the help of two dimensional GC,
components of the analytes are properly separated so that, even the trace amount of the
components will be identified in the MS.[19]

Applications
1. Large number of samples can be analyzed at the same time.
2. Analysis of petroleum, PCBs, complex extracts and food samples is performed by this
technique.

Advantages
1. Unprecedented selectivity.
2. High sensitivity.
3. Enhanced separation power and increased speed.

8. GC-ICP-MS[8]
Individual ICP-MS [Inductively coupled plasma-Mass spectrometry] does not provide
information on the chemical structure of the analyte at molecular level since all forms of the
analytes are converted to positively charged atomic ions in the plasma. However, as an
excellent elemental analyser (ICP) with resolution on masses (MS), ICP-MS can also be used
as gas chromatographic detector. Resulting from this hyphenation, target analytes are
separated into their constituent chemical forms or oxidation states before elemental analysis.
In GC-ICP-MS, where the sample is gaseous, the transfer line should be inactivated and

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heated to eliminate sample degradation and condensation and will guide the sample directly
into the ICP torch. In this way, the sample is maintained at constant high temperature from
the end of the chromatographic column in the GC oven to the tip of the ICP injector. It is
almost a universal detector (only H, He, Ag, F, Ne cannot be directly measured), fits perfectly
with a wide range of GC carrier gases and flows, and is capable of quantification with isotope
dilution. A picogram (pg) level of sensitivity can be achieved. GC-ICP-MS is very useful
technique for speciation analysis such as sulphur speciation & organometallic speciation.

9. GC-TOF-MS[8]
Recent advancements in instrumental optics design, the use of fast recording electronics and
improvements in signal processing have led to a booming of the TOF-MS for investigation of
organic compounds in complex matrices. GC-TOF-MS with high resolution of about 7000 is
capable of achieving a mass accuracy as good as 5 ppm for small molecules. This allows not
only isobaric ions to be easily mass-resolved but also the measurements of accurate masses
for elemental composition assignment or mass confirmation, which adds one more powerful
means for identification in GC-MS besides mass spectrum database searching and tandem
mass spectrometry. High resolution detection in GC-TOF-MS offers not only the high mass
accuracy of molecular and fragment ions but also the accurate isotopic distribution with
regards to isotope intensities and isotope-resolved information for element assignments. It is
extremely helpful for unknown compounds for which no Library spectrum is available for
database searching. With the help of software tools, a carbon number prediction filter can be
applied to reduce the number of possible elemental compositions based on the relative
13 12 13
abundance of the isotopic peak corresponding to C (relative to the C peak, each C
13
isotope contributes 1.1% to the C peak). The nitrogen rule can also be used to determine
whether the ion is an „„even-electron ion‟‟ (for instance, protonated or deprotonated
molecule) or an „„odd-electron ion‟‟ (for instance, radical cation or anion). With these
considerations, possible elemental compositions can be obtained when it is searched in
available databases (e.g., Index Merck, Sigma Aldrich, Chem-Spider, Pubchem, Reaxys) and
a chemical structure can be proposed. Both accurate masses and isotopes of fragment ions
should be in agreement with the chemical structure assigned. However, in order to secure this
identification, a reference standard will be required in a final step to check the GC retention
time and to confirm the presence of fragment ions experimentally by GC-TOF-MS analysis.

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Application: Target screening of organic pollutants in water, pesticide residues in food,

anabolic steroids in human urine and xenoestrogens in human-breast tissues.

Disadvantage: Despite its excellent mass accuracy and sensitivity for qualitative studies,
GC-TOF-MS is not as robust as other MS detectors such as triple quadrupoles for
quantification due to its limited dynamic range.

CONCLUSION
Many individual instrumental analytical techniques are already well developed and able to
provide specific information about analytes in samples, although each of them has its
advantages and disadvantages. The complexity of real-world sample matrices often exceeds
the analytical capabilities of any conventional chromatographic separations. The development
and employment of more comprehensive coupling techniques to enable a deeper insight into
the composition of natural and synthetic matrices has become a necessity.

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