BOOKS the fact that HPLC with columns of 1 mm or less offers tangible advantages, many of which were not obvious during the early stages of research. Although economy of operation is not a strong driving force for capillary HPLC, it should be pointed out that if equivalent or superior performance can be attained with narrow-bore columns, there will be strong economic incentive to use such technology as replacement instruments are purchased. Microbore configurations offer some advantages, including the easy varying of column lengths and improved sensitivity in sample-limited situations. One of the greatest justifications for capillary HPLC, alluded to in the text but not explicitly stated, is the development of hyphenated techniques in all systems employing HPLC. As reliable microbore and ultramicrobore columns, injectors, detectors, and pumps continue to be developed commercially, many uses for the technique become evident, such as multidimensional separations (LC/LC, LC/GC, and even LC/TLC interfaces). One question implicitly raised in this book is, Why did HPLC ever become locked into its present configuration? It is an indictment against scientific development in chromatography that capillary HPLC should be regarded as anything other than what it is: simply a logical approach to solving certain separations problems. In LC, column diameter is a variable just like particle size, operating pressure, temperature, or any other parameter. Capillary HPLC encountered resistance from the chromatographic community in its early stages, primarily because scientists did not like to change the way they thought. Conventional HPLC on 4.6-mm i.d. columns was working well, and there was no reason to upset the status quo with questionable changes in practice. Clear thinking would have suggested in the earliest stages that all aspects of instrument design should be regarded as open and that particular configurations should be readily adopted and changed to solve problems. There is no "conventional" column diameter, nor for that matter any conventional column, stationary phase, and temperature. Probably one of the driving forces behind adopting 4.6-mm i.d. columns was that the average instrument design was so poor that larger peak volumes were required to match the extra-column dispersions typically produced. Perhaps one direct benefit of capillary HPLC as a design alternative will be the improvement of commercial instrument designs such that they will finally have many of the specifications re-
Kalvoda, Ed. 237 pp. Plenum Press, 233 Spring St., New York, N.Y. 10013. 1987. $45
quired for work on conventional 3- and 5-mm columns. In any event, the authors have done a superb job in summarizing these various requirements, and I recommend this book to anyone who needs a brief but thorough accounting of the current theory and practice of HPLC.
Advances in Chromatography: Volume
Books Received
Forensic Science Handbook: Volume II.
Electroanalytical Methods in Chemical and Environmental Analysis. Robert
26. J. Calvin Giddings, Eli Grushka, Phyllis R. Brown, Eds. xviii + 402 pp. Marcel Dekker, 270 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.1987. $69.75 Richard Saferstein, Ed. xiv + 475 pp. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 07632.1988. $67
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ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY, VOL. 60, NO. 3, FEBRUARY 1, 1988 · 249 A
