Columns: Packed and Capillary; Column Selection in Gas Chromatography

The gas chromatographic column can be considered to be the central item in a gas chromatograph. Since the early 1970s the nature and design of the column has changed considerably from one containing either a solid adsorbent or a liquid deposited on an inert solid support packed into a length of tubing to one containing an immobilized or crosslinked stationary phase bound to the inner surface of a much longer length of fused‐silica tubing.