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In the scope of the analysis of organic compounds in column-switching liquid chromatography, what does the following statement mean?

sample preconcentration techniques with high enrichment factor(EFs)

The word preconcentration is not understandable for me. Is it a technique for extracting the components?

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    – Martin - マーチン ♦
    Commented Oct 24, 2014 at 9:49

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Preconcentration means to increase the concentration of a sample prior to analysis or detection. For example you can do preconcentration for an non-volatile organic sample with evaporation its solvent.

An operation (process) as the result of which microcomponents are transferred from the sample of larger mass into the sample of smaller mass, so that the concentration of the microcomponents is increased. Examples include the decrease in solvent volume during distillation or evaporation, and the transfer of microcomponents from an aqueous solution into a smaller volume of organic solvent by extraction.(IUPAC)

In a simple word, its means: decreasing the volume of solvent.

There are lots of methods for preconcentration: solvent evaporation, using a different phase (ex: a solid or liquid that could absorbs sample from the solvent) and ...

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