Direct Coupling of Capillary Supercritical Fluid Chromatography with Double-Focusing High Resolution Mass Spectrometry

An integral restrictor interface with jet separator for coupling column supercritical fluid extraction - supercritical fluid chromatography with high resolution mass spectrometry (SFE-SFC-MS) has been built and used for the analysis of a fatty acid ester, and of polymer aditives with a wide range of masses. The mobile phase used was supercritical carbon dioxide; a flame ionization detector (FID) was used in paralel with the mass spectrometer. Different SFC-MS interface operating conditions, e. g. temperature, restrictor position, flow rate, and sample transfer conditions were optimized to obtain good sensitivity and separation for thes applications. In addition, the sensitivity of measurements performed with the direct insertion probe and by SFC-MS interface have been compared.