Automation of flow injection gas diffusion‐ion chromatography for thenanomolar determination of methylamines and ammonia in seawater and atmosphericsamples

The automation and improved design and performance of Flow Injection Gas Diffusion‐Ion Chromatography (FIGD‐IC), a novel technique for the simultaneous analysis of trace ammonia (NH 3 ) and methylamines (MAs) in aqueous media, is presented. Automated Flow Injection Gas Diffusion (FIGD) promotes the selective transmembrane diffusion of MAs and NH 3 from aqueous sample under strongly alkaline (pH > 12, NaOH), chelated (EDTA) conditions into a recycled acidic acceptor stream. The acceptor is then injected onto an ion chromatograph where NH 3 and the MAs are fully resolved as their cations and detected conductimetrically. A versatile PC interfaced control unit and data capture unit (DCU) are employed in series to direct the selonoid valve switching sequence, IC operation and collection of data. Automation, together with other modifications improved both linearily (R 2 > 0.99 MAs 0‐100 nM, NH 3 0‐1000 nM) and precision (