Chromatography Forum

Good Day,

I need help finding references/guides in purifying/dissolving solid samples(piece of food, plastics, etc)before inputting to the chromatographer(gas/liquid). Our school report is about chromatography. So far the references that i got are all about operation, nothing yet about sample preparation. Thanks in advance.

Do a Google search on the terms "chromatography" and "sample prep". There is lots of stuff out there.

To make sense of it, think about what you have to accomplish:

1. Get the stuff you're interested in into solution
2. (sometimes) get rid of junk that you're *not* interested in
3. (sometimes) change the chemistry of the stuff you're interested in to make it easier to analyze.

Also, if you want to dissolve plastics - look up the particular plastics of interest to find solvents. Not all plastics take the same solvents - and some do not dissolve in anything. Food - or biological material in general is difficult to dissolve. In many cases, the analyst finds a way to extract the compounds of interest from difficult matrices and then analyze the extract. If you have an interest in specific analytes, search for ways that others have disolved or extracted samples.