My last Korner expressed doubts about GC techniques being as well optimized as one would think. Many of the existing designs and working rules emerged from specific circumstances and interests rather than thorough investigations. This Korner questions such a rule. It is not for me.
Quality assurance requires a lot of time to be invested into checking the accuracy of the equipment.
Sources of error, which are more demanding to understand and check, are frequently neglected, even though these errors are often the source of more severe errors than, for example, the balance, pipette, or oven temperature. Sample evaporation in splitless injection belongs to them. The rule that liners for splitless injection should be empty was introduced by my father in the early seventies. He wanted to avoid the retention of solutes on a packing material, which can hinder the transfer of higher boiling and adsorptive components into the column. In fact, during the splitless period, the gas phase of the vaporizing chamber is exchanged at the most twice and minimal retention results in loss.