The master theses of the EACH programme have usually high practical value. However, this does not prevent them to lead to cutting edge scientific results.

The master thesis of Huian Liu – EACH 2017 graduate from the Lyon study track – titled Gas separation by high pressure gas chromatography using monolithic columns is a good example. At its core the thesis was devoted to investigating the behavior of monolithic GC columns in separation of small hydrocarbons for achieving high efficiency and short analysis time – an important issue in oil refineries.

As an additional value, however, it involved experimenting with a novel detector – vacuum UV absorption detector (VUV detector). VUV detector is an emerging detector in GC, enabling simultaneous detection, identification and quantitation of analytes.

In chromatography there are detectors of two response types – concentration-sensitive and mass-sensitive detectors. The response type is important in planning separation, and especially in quantitation. As a result of Huian’s work it was firmly established that VUV detector is a concentration-sensitive, not mass-sensitive detector. This result was considered scientifically so significant that it was accepted for publication by the number one chromatography journal in the world – Journal of Chromatography A (!): Huian Liu, Guy Raffin, Guillaume Trutt, Jérôme Randon J. Chrom. A, 2017, 1530, 171–175. Congratulations to Huian and the team!

Huian is continuing his studies as a PhD student at UCBL.

(Photo: Huian Liu in lab with the GC instrument)