A differential refractometer (DRI), or refractive index detector (RI or RID) is a detector that measures the

refractive index In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, o ...

of an

analyte An analyte, component (in clinical chemistry), or chemical species is a substance or chemical constituent that is of interest in an analytical procedure. The purest substances are referred to as analytes, such as 24 karat gold, NaCl, water, et ...

relative to the

solvent A solvent (s) (from the Latin '' solvō'', "loosen, untie, solve") is a substance that dissolves a solute, resulting in a solution. A solvent is usually a liquid but can also be a solid, a gas, or a supercritical fluid. Water is a solvent for ...

. They are often used as detectors for

high-performance liquid chromatography High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), formerly referred to as high-pressure liquid chromatography, is a technique in analytical chemistry used to separate, identify, and quantify each component in a mixture. It relies on pumps to pa ...

and

size exclusion chromatography Size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), also known as molecular sieve chromatography, is a chromatographic method in which molecules in solution are separated by their size, and in some cases molecular weight. It is usually applied to large molecul ...

. They are considered to be universal detectors because they can detect anything with a refractive index different from the solvent, but they have low sensitivity.Undergraduate Instrumental Methods of Analysis. James W. Robinson, Eileen M. Skelly Frame, George M. Frame II. Marcel Dekker, 2005, p. 810.

Principles of operation

When light leaves one material and enters another it bends, or refracts. The

of a material is a measure of how much light bends when it enters. Differential refractometers contain a flow cell with two parts: one for the sample and one for the reference solvent. The detector measures the refractive index of both components. When only solvent is passing through the sample component the measured refractive index of both components is the same, but when an analyte passes through the flow cell the two measured refractive index are different. The difference appears as a peak in the chromatogram.

Applications

Differential refractometers are often used for the analysis of

polymer A polymer (; Greek ''poly-'', "many" + '' -mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and ...

samples in size exclusion chromatography.

References

Measuring instruments {{chromatography-stub