3. Chromatographic methods

3.1 General aspects

Current trends in environmental analysis methods involve increasing use of chromatographic methods coupled with mass spectrometry. This section summarizes the application of chromatographic approaches to organic environmental analysis, focusing on new trends and emerging pollutants.

Note the growing use of rapid gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) couplings, chiral separations (generally using chiral GC columns or capillary electrophoresis), and on-line extraction and separation couplings with detection, e.g. solid-phase extraction (SPE) coupled with liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) or GC/MS with ion chromatography/inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (IC/ICPMS). Thanks to the development of new methods, detection...