Coupling of column liquid chromatography and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry.

This paper provides an extensive overview of the literature on the coupling of column liquid chromatography (LC) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR). Flow-cell-based FT-IR detection and early solvent- elimination interfaces for LC-FT-IR are discussed in brief. A comprehensive description is given of interface systems which use spraying to induce rapid eluent evaporation, and which essentially represent the state-of-the-art in LC-FT-IR. Fundamental aspects of FT-IR detection of deposited compounds are considered with special attention to the use of FT-IR microscopy. Finally, the interface systems suitable for reversed-phase LC are summarized and evaluated. The overview shows that solvent-elimination techniques can provide good sensitivity and enhanced spectral quality, and suggests that LC-FT-IR may well become a widely applicable technique for the unambiguous identification of trace-level sample constituents.