Separation of Hydrohalocarbons and Chlorofluorocarbons Using a Cyclodextrin Gas Solid Chromatography Capillary Column

Chromatographic analysis of very volatile hydrohalocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons has proved to be a difficult task due to the generally poor retention of these compounds on commercially available wall coated open tubular capillary columns. Although porous layer open tubular (PLOT) capillary columns coated with alumina/KCl, or alumina/Na2SO4 provide adequate resolution for this class of compound they induce dehydrochlorination of certain hydrohalocarbons. More recently PLOT columns coated with Porapak porous polymer materials Q, S and U have been shown to provide inadequate resolution and high column bleed at the high column temperatures required for separation. We present results from the analysis of mixtures of hydrohalocarbons, chlorofluorocarbons, halocarbons, and halons, using a commercially available cyclodextrin PLOT column.