ABSTRACT
Concern about the presence of hazardous chemicals in the environment and the threat that they pose to man and nature, has led to great demands on the chemist and his analytical tools to detect and measure such substances at lower and lower concentrations. The selection of an analytical method suitable for the analysis of contaminants in the environment is constrained by a number of factors such as the nature of the sample and analytes, the information required, the required precision and accuracy of the results, and the availability of suitable equipment. The complexity of the organic components, both in number and in structure, means that organic analytical methods must provide a high overall resolving power. Thus, high resolution chromatographic methods, such as capillary column gas chromatography or high performance liquid chromatography, are widely used in environmental analytical chemistry. However, it is rare that a single chromatographic technique provides sufficient resolution for the detailed analysis of a typical environmental sample.
