CHARACTERIZATION OF AN ELEMENT-SPECIFIC DETECTOR FOR COMBINED GAS-CHROMATOGRAPHY ATOMIC-EMISSION DETECTION

An element-specific detector using a capacitively coupled plasma developed recently for gas chromatography was characterized according to the accepted terms of gas chromatographic detectors. The most important detector parameters, sensitivity, linearity, limit of detection, linear range and selectivity, were determined for channels of four elements, carbon, chlorine, bromine and sulphur, with a view to potential applications. The parameters obtained were compared, as permitted by the different mechanisms of operation, with some common gas chromatographic detectors of similar application. The characteristics of the detector were evaluated independently of application.