Plenary - Topic: RFIC, History and State of the Art

The advent of Reagent-Free™ Ion Chromatography (RFIC™) has fundamentally changed the practice of ion chromatography in laboratories worldwide.    RFIC systems make it possible to perform a wide range of ion chromatographic separations using only deionized water as the carrier.  RFIC systems combine three core technologies: electrolytic eluent generation that generates acid, base, or salt eluents for IC separations, self-regenerating electrolytic suppression that produces the regenerant ions necessary for eluent suppression, and continuously regenerated trap column (CR-TC) that removes trace-level contaminants.  For many applications, RFIC systems provide high performance with increased sensitivity and the flexibility to perform isocratic and gradient separations using alkali hydroxides (e.g., KOH), methanesulfonic acid (MSA), or carbonate/bicarbonate eluents.  The RFIC systems offer IC users the benefits of simplicity and ease of use, and improved reproducibility.  In addition to saving time, labor, and operating costs, RFIC systems eliminate errors associated with manual eluent preparation. This effectively improves IC method performance and reproducibility.  In this presentation, we will review the operation principles and development history of key electrolytic devices used in the RFIC systems.  We will also discuss the current state-of-the art of RFIC systems and their used in conventional-scale and capillary-scale IC separations of target analytes in various sample matrices.