Nicholas H. Snow | Authors

Professor Harold Monroe McNair, among the original icons of chromatography, passed away on 27 June 2021 at the age of 88. In this tribute to the remarkable man and using his works as a guide, we explore three fundamental areas of understanding in GC, seeing ideas about problems that still challenge gas chromatographers today.

The late Harold McNair had a remarkable 60-year career as a chromatographer. He taught us many valuable lessons, three of which we discuss here.

This column will examine simple steps that can be taken to optimize a separation without changing the column. Adjusting temperature, flow, and sampling with an eye towards the classical method optimization goals of high resolution, high speed, high sample capacity, and ease of use will be discussed.

How far can you get on optimizing a GC separation without changing the column? Pretty far, in fact.