Multidimensional gas and liquid chromatographic approaches to trace-level environmental analysis

Multidimensional approaches are becoming increasingly popular for the trace-level determination of microcontaminants in environmental samples. Hyphenated procedures with which sample treatment-plus-separation is combined on-line with a spectroscopic detector such as a (tandem) mass spectrometer, are especially useful because of their high identification power. Socalled comprehensive techniques, which possess an extremely high separation efficiency, are a promising new addition to the list.