Reversed-phase liquid chromatography coupled on-line with capillary gas chromatography use of an anion-exchange membrane to remove an ion-pair reagent from the eluent.

In order to enable the coupling of reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC) with capillary gas chromatography (GC), the performance of an anion-exchange micromembrane device has been studied to remove the ion-pair reagent methanesulphonic acid from an acetonitrile/water LC eluent. The regenerant in the membrane was tetrabutylammonium hydroxide dissolved in acetonitrile/water, which effects an anion-exchange of methanesulphonate ions for regenerant hydroxide ions. The efficiency of the exchange process was found to be 99.9%. This enabled the direct introduction of the LC eluent, free of ions and with the proper acetonitrile/water ratio, into the GC. The applicability of the on-line LC-micromembrane-GC system has been illustrated for the potential drug eltoprazine, which is quantitatively recovered with a coefficient of variation for standard solutions of 3% at the 150 μg/ml analyte level. © 1995 Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn Verlagsgesellschaft mbH.