Micro gas chromatography (µGC) is a technique developed for rapid, in situ analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for environmental protection, industrial monitoring, and toxicology. While reduced µGC size and power requirements allow for increased portability, the low moisture and oxygen resilience of current microcolumn technology result in increased peak broadening and tailing for humid samples, which necessitates the use of bulky helium or nitrogen carrier gas cartridges. Developing a microcolumn to address these deficiencies is desirable to improve µGC field performance and further reduce µGC system size. This paper reports the development and characterization of a microfabricated phosphonium ionic liquid (µIL) column and demonstrates separation of both polar and nonpolar compounds using this column via analyses of alcohols, chloroalkanes, aromatics, aldehydes, fatty acid methyl esters, and alkanes. The µIL column achieved operation at temperatures up to 345 °C for fatty acid methyl ester and alkane separation. Notably, all separations in this study used dry air as the carrier gas, showing that analysis of a diverse range of compounds was possible in the presence of oxygen. After exposure to dry air for 48 h at temperatures up to 220 °C, the µIL column's peak capacity was only degraded by 8.92%, which validated its long-term robustness against oxygen. The column's separation performance was not degraded by high moisture concentrations or long-term moisture exposure, also manifesting its robustness to moisture. The high temperature, moisture, and oxygen resilience of the µIL column enable more rapid separations in varying field environments without requiring additional µGC accessories (e.g., humidity filters and carrier gas cartridges). The µIL column is therefore expected to be useful for integration into future µGC devices.

中文翻译：

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微型离子液体色谱柱，用于在干燥空气中进行分离。

微型气相色谱（µGC）是一项用于对挥发性有机化合物（VOC）进行快速原位分析的技术，用于环境保护，工业监测和毒理学。虽然减小的µGC尺寸和功率要求可以提高便携性，但是当前微柱技术的低湿气和氧气弹性导致潮湿样品的峰加宽和拖尾现象增加，因此必须使用笨重的氦气或氮气载气盒。开发微柱以解决这些缺陷对于改善µGC现场性能并进一步减小µGC系统尺寸是理想的。本文报道了微型phospho离子液体（µIL）色谱柱的开发和表征，并通过对醇的分析证明了使用该色谱柱对极性和非极性化合物的分离，氯烷烃，芳烃，醛，脂肪酸甲酯和烷烃。µIL色谱柱可在高达345°C的温度下运行，以分离脂肪酸甲酯和烷烃。值得注意的是，本研究中的所有分离均使用干燥空气作为载气，这表明在氧气存在下对多种化合物进行分析是可能的。在高达220°C的温度下暴露于干燥空气中48小时后，µIL色谱柱的峰容量仅下降了8.92％，这证明了其对氧气的长期稳定性。高水分浓度或长期暴露于水分不会降低色谱柱的分离性能，这也表明了其对水分的耐受性。高温，潮湿，µIL色谱柱的抗氧化性和氧气弹性可在不同的现场环境中实现更快的分离，而无需其他µGC附件（例如，湿度过滤器和载气筒）。因此，µIL色谱柱有望用于集成到将来的µGC设备中。