Detectors for liquid chromatography

Liquid chromatography (LC) is, for all practical purposes, a hyphenated technique. Physical separation of components is only one part of LC. The other goals, quantitation and identification, are conveniently achieved by putting appropriate detectors after the chromatographic column. Even in preparative applications, it is necessary to monitor the effluent to synchronize fraction collection. In principle, any measurement method can be used. In practice, there are several constraints when a measurement method, that is, a detector, is interfaced to LC. Edward Yeung and Robert Synovec of Iowa State University discuss recent developments in refractive index, absorption, photothermal, fluorescence, optical rotation electrochemical, and MS detectors for LC.