Direct coupling of packed column supercritical fluid chromatography to continuous corona discharge ion mobility spectrometry.

In this study, packed column supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) was directly coupled to a continuous corona discharge (CD) ion mobility spectrometer (IMS) with several modifications. The main advantage of the developed detector is its capability to introduce full column effluent up to 2000 mL min(-1) CO(2) gas directly into the IMS cell relative to 40 mL min(-1) CO(2) gas as a maximum tolerance, reported for the previous IMS detectors. This achievement was made possible because of using corona discharge instead of (63)Ni as an ionization source and locating the inlet and outlet of the CO(2) gas in the counter electrode of the CD in opposite direction. In addition, a heated interface was placed between back pressure regulator (BPR) and the IMS cell to heat the output of the BPR for introducing sample as the gas phase into the IMS cell. Furthermore, a make-up methanol flow was introduced between the column outlet and BPR to provide a more uniform flow through the BPR and also to prevent freezing and deposition of the analytes in the BPR. The performance of the SFC-CD-IMS was evaluated by analysis of testosterone, medroxyprogesterone, caffeine, and theophylline as test compounds and figures of merit for these compounds have been calculated.

Separation of γ-linolenic and other polyunsaturated fatty acids from Boraginaceae via supercritical CO2.

Essential fatty acids were extracted from Echium amoenum (Boraginaceae) seed oil via supercritical carbon dioxide and the results were compared with conventional Soxhlet method as the base case of 100% recovery. The response surface methodology was used to optimize the effective extraction parameters. The chemical composition of recovered oil was analyzed by polar and non-polar gas chromatograph-flame ionization detector columns. The experimental results indicated that echium seed contained 25 wt% oil and the maximum extraction oil recovery of 92% was obtained via supercritical CO(2) at optimal operating conditions (43°C, 280 bar, 1.5 mL/min, 25 min static time and 130 min dynamic time). At similar operating conditions, applying 2.5 and 5 mol% ethanol as a modifier enhanced the recovery to 96 and 112%, respectively. The results showed that supercritical fluid extraction is a viable technique for separation of constituents such as γ-linolenic acid (7-8%), palmitic acid (6-7%), stearic acid (3-4%), oleic acid (12-13%), linoleic acid (19-20%), α-linolenic acid (40-41%) and stearidonic acid (8-9%) from Boraginaceae.

A sensitive and simple extractive-spectrophotometric method for the determination of microgram amount of cobalt by using alpha-benzilmonoxime.

Alpha-benzilmonoxime has been used for the extraction and determination of cobalt at microgram amount. The reagent reacts with cobalt(II) in the pH range of 8.8 - 9.3 to form a yellow-color chelate, which is extracted in chloroform, toluene, and some other non-polar solvents. The chelate is stable in chloroform for about one day. Under the optimum conditions of the a-benzilmonoxime concentration and pH of 9.0, Beer's law was obeyed in the concentration range of 0.08 - 2.2 microg/ml cobalt. The molar absorptivity of the extracted species was 2.55 x 10(4) dm3/mol cm at 380 nm, with a detection limit of 0.01 microg/ml cobalt. Relative standard deviations of 0.4, 0.8 and 2.3% were found for the determination of cobalt concentrations of 2.2, 1.1 and 0.08 microg/ml, respectively. The effect of diverse ions on the determination of 1.00 microg/ml of cobalt has been studied. The method was applied to the determination of cobalt in vitamin B12 and B-complex ampoules, a Co2O3-Co3O4 laboratory chemical mixture and some synthetic alloy samples. The method is sensitive, simple, rapid and accurate.