587 Inverse Gas Chromatography

Measurement of the physical properties of surfaces and interfaces is key to understanding how liquids, gases and solids interact upon contact. In the first instance the measurement will provide information about how a solid is wetted by a particular liquid and secondly, enable material interactions to be optimised by understanding their fundamental hydrogen bonding, dispersion and polar forces present in dispersion processes. Furthermore, the use of iGC (Inverse Gas Chromatography) can help to understand diffusion kinetics and solubility parameters, properties that affect the performance and processing of many materials. The ability to understand these properties will greatly enhance the capability of the National Formulation Centre. Inverse gas chromatography is a physical characterization technique that is used in the analysis of the surfaces of solids. Traditional GC is an analytical technique. Inverse gas chromatography or IGC is a highly sensitive and versatile gas phase technique developed over 40 years ago to study the surface and bulk properties of particulate and fibrous materials. In IGC the roles of the stationary (solid) and mobile (gas or vapor) phases are inverted from traditional analytical gas chromatography (GC). In GC, a standard column is used to separate and characterize several gases and/or vapors. In IGC, a single gas or vapor (probe molecule) is injected into a column packed with the solid sample under investigation. Instead of an analytical technique, IGC is considered a materials characterization technique