Sample pre-fractionation of environmental and food samples using LC-GC multidimensional techniques

Multidimensional techniques are very powerful tools for unraveling naturally-occurring complex samples. The potential of multidimensional techniques is reviewed, also, as a substitute for the preparation step, with special attention to the hyphenation of liquid chromatography (LC) with gas chromatography (GC). An excursus on the evolution of hyphenated GC-based techniques and the main features of the LC-GC instruments is presented, before focusing on the more recent applications, discussing the performance of the LC separation as a preparation step. An overview of the potential of both comprehensive LCxGC and LC-GCxGC is reported. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.