Theorethical aspects of Flow Analysis

FERNANDO IÑÓN; MABEL TUDINO

Advances in Flow Analysis

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co, Weinheim.

Año: 2008;

The knowledge of fundamentals of flow analysis becomes of great relevance at the moment of predicting the analytical behavior of different flow systems. Particularly, the study of the dispersion process helps on the selection of the system variables and the system configurations that allow the optimization of the different figures of merit of a given analytical methodology. In this chapter, a critical review about the factors that are able to describe the dispersion process in flow systems is presented. Mainly, the revision is oriented towards flow injection systems as they have been extensively studied from a theoretical point of view. Special emphasis will be made on the dispersion descriptors and on the relevance of finding global descriptors that allow the prediction of the best working conditions for maximizing, for example, analytical frequency together with optimal sensitivity.  The contribution of the different components of the flow system on the global dispersion will be analyzed. The different models and design equations reported up to date in order to find correlations amongst system variables and dispersion descriptors will be presented and fully discussed.