Where Has My Efficiency Gone? Impacts of Extracolumn Peak Broadening on Performance, Part II: Sample Injection

Abstract

Dispersion (broadening, or spreading) of analyte zones (peaks) outside of chromatography columns can seriously erode the resolution provided by good columns. In this installment, we focus on the contribution of the sample injection step to the total level of extracolumn dispersion in a liquid chromatography (LC) system. This contribution has both a physical component (that is impacted by injector design and configuration and method variables) and a chemical component (that depends on the difference between the mobile phase and the sample solvent compositions).