Made in Switzerland: 25 Years of Swiss Ion Chromatography

摘要

Metrohm is a well-established company in the field of ion analysis. Back in 1948, it manufactured the first pH meter. Not quite so long ago, the company also moved into ion chromatography. The achievements in its services to users are all the more important: any user can perform ion chromatographic analyses successfully! Following the successful launch of an electrochemical HPLC detector in 1981, a conductivity detector was developed in 1983. Very soon the development team realized that this task was achievable, but to obtain a stable baseline and low detection limits, the entire analytical system had to be optimized - from the high-pressure pump through capillaries to the separation column. In 1987, Metrohm presented its first ion chromatograph, the "690 Ion Chromatograph". This instrument combined an injector (manual sample injection), separation column, detector, and control electronics in a single housing and relied on single-column ion chromatography with electronic suppression. It proved that ion chromatography (IC) can be successful even without chemical suppression. For better or worse, a decision had to be made in favor of electronic suppression, because chemical suppression was at that time protected by patents and therefore not available. Although originally a hurdle, this might be precisely the reason why the conductivity detector is still the best on the market.