Examination of the temporal effect in a flow injection analysis system using multi-channel absorbance detection.

In addition to the Poiseuille effect, a so-called temporal effect was proposed recently to elucidate the commonly observed tailing peak signals of flow injection analysis (FIA). A multi-channel absorbance detector was used in this study to obtain the FIA peaks on both the spatial and temporal coordinates. The temporal effect was analyzed by comparison of the profiles between the experimental and the corresponding Gaussian peaks, and by comparison of asymmetry factors between the spatial and the temporal peaks. The temporal effect appeared to be the major factor under flow rates ranging from 0.5 to 8 ml min (-1). This was despite the presence of a spatially frontal peak observed in the FIA tubing, which was found to result in a tailing peak on the temporal coordinate due to this discussed cause. In addition, the temporal effect became greater as the flow rate increased.