Kenneth Mopper
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 4
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The adaptation of modern chromatographic techniques, especially capillary gas chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), to seawater analysis has lead to new insights into chemical and biological oceanographic processes. In this project the main long-range objective is to extend the role of HPLC by exploring the applicability of microbore HPLC to trace organic analysis of seawater. This technique offers substantially greater sensitivity and separation efficiency than conventional HPLC and, furthermore, the entire effluent of microbore columns may be fed into selective detectors, such as mass spectrometers and flame-base detectors. Initially, the microbore HPLC system will be used for the analylsis of carboxylic acids as part of our ONR-funded project. Other potential marine applications, such as the analysis of amino acids, pigments, photosensitizers, thiols, macromolecules and metal-organic complexes, will also be investigated as opportunities arise. In order to obtain information on the nature of the substances eluting off the microbore column the effluent will be analyzed spectroscopically with an on-the-fly UV-VIS diode array detector. Finally, we will explore potential marine application of laser excitation fluorescence detection in conjunction with microbore HPLC.