Gas–Liquid Chromatographic Separation of Sulphur Compounds

Abstract

RESEARCH in the general area of sulphur chemistry has been increasing in the past few years at a fairly rapid rate. Hence, any new analytical methods or techniques which can simplify the isolation and/or identification of sulphur derivatives are of value. Techniques which are both qualitative and quantitative are even more desirable. Spectrophotometric and potentiometric titration techniques or a combination of these two methods of analysis have been widely used for the identification and estimation of thiols, disulphides, sulphides, sulphoxides and sulphones. Recently, Gates and Meloan^1,2 have described a gas–liquid chromatographic technique for the separation and identification of a mixture of sulphoxides and a mixture of sulphones. These authors have also briefly indicated² that separation of a sulphide–sulphoxide–sulphone mixture is feasible by their technique. This last finding has prompted us to communicate some of our results on the same problem.