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ABSTRACT
Steric/hyperlayer flow field-flow fractionation (St/Hyp/FlFFF) is suitable for the separation and characterization of micrometer-sized particles. In this technique, an ultrafiltration membrane is commonly used as the surface of the accumulation wall. St/ Hyp/FlFFF has been recently tested in membraneless mode and an improvement in performance was found. Recovery was also improved and second-order effects were reduced.
In the framework of St/Hyp/FlFFF optimization, the effect of sample loading is a problem of a certain importance. For quantitative purposes, the conversion of peaks into mass particle size distributions is of prime importance and, therefore, the conditions in which there is no effect of sample loading on recovery should be investigated.
In this paper, systematic work was performed in order to study the effect of sample loading on recovery. We have found the conditions in which recovery is independent of sample loading. For these conditions, the limit of detection for various micrometer-size standard polystyrene particles was calculated. The absolute sample recovery was calculated by applying a quantitative method for single-run analysis in FFF with UV/Vis detectors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Raffaella Centofanti and Laura Scardovi for the experimental work performed here.