ABSTRACT
The primary objectives of the research were the development of higher-capacity high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) separation techniques and the full automation of the mixture injection and fraction collection operations. The automated HPLC system used for this research was configured to accomplish repetitive injections of aliquots of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) mixture and collect the separated isomers. The reversed-phase-HPLC separations of the TCDD isomer components of Mixture A demonstrate the potential for "fine-tuning" the mobile-phase composition to obtain improved resolution of other TCDD isomers. The initial evaluations of the normal-phase-HPLC separations of the isomers showed that this was not an efficient or easily automated method for isolating the TCDD isomers. The resolution obtained with the more specialized mobile phases permitted the isolation of greater quantities of the TCDD isomers from each injection, because the broadened peaks resulting from overloading of the columns could still be collected without cross-contamination.
