ABSTRACT
Since the development of HPLC as a separation technique, considerable effort has been spent on the design and improvement of suitable detectors. The detector is perhaps the second-most important component of an HPLC system, after the column that performs the actual separation: it would be pointless to perform any separation without some means of identifying the separated components. To this end, a number of analytical techniques have been employed to examine either samples taken from a fraction collector or the column efuent itself. Although many different physical principles have been examined for their potential as chromatography detectors, only four main types of detectors have obtained almost universal application, namely, ultraviolet (UV) absorbance, refractive index (RI), uorescence, and conductivity detectors. Today, these detectors are used in about 80% of all separations. Newer varieties of detector such as the laser-induced uorescence (LIF), electrochemical (EC), evaporative light scattering (ELS), and mass spectrometer (MS) detectors have been developed to meet the demands set by either specialized analyses or by miniaturization.
