With conventional analysis times taking from 30 to 60 minutes, this application note describes the utilization of the TRACE GC Ultra's UltraFast technology with a resistively heated column to perform the same analysis in one minute. This new method yields identical data with a 40-fold reduction in analysis time, thus providing increased productivity and superior results in the laboratory.

The TRACE GC Ultra, equipped with the UltraFast option, can provide both qualitative and quantitative characterization of essential oils of different complexity, featuring 30-40-fold reduction in analysis time and comparable accuracy with respect to the conventional analytical methods.

The reported examples prove that it is possible to compensate the loss of efficiency deriving from the use of shorter columns at such high heating rates, by choosing the column stationary phase properly selective towards critical pairs.

The technique has demonstrated to be suitable for the analysis of real-world samples, which for the wide range of volatility of their components are representative of everyday separation problems in this field.