6. Conclusions and outlook

The analysis of volatile or potentially volatile compounds is generally carried out by gas chromatography. Coupling this technique with mass spectrometry or a specific detector makes it very powerful for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of complex mixtures.

However, even though the resolving power of capillary columns has improved enormously over the years, separation problems are still common when studying highly complex mixtures (petroleum products, environmental matrices or natural extracts).

For these samples, all the constituents cannot be separated using a single stationary phase. It is then usual to analyze them jointly using several stationary phases, or to simplify them prior to analysis using adapted sample preparation techniques. This multiplication of manipulations and/or analyses increases analysis time and sources...