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2. Description of the Prior Art Ever since its inception, the standard in volatile mixture separations for analysis has been gas chromatography (GC). Traditional GC involves injecting the analyte mixture into a tubular column which is coated with a stationary phase or packed with a relatively inert porous material that is itself coated with a stationary phase. A common configuration is a wall coated fused silica capillary column. Depending on the carrier gas flow conditions in the column, the analyte boiling points and relative affinities for and interaction with the sta tionary phase, the different components of the analyte mix ture elute from the column at various times (retention times). As the chemicals elute or exit the end of the column, they are detected and identified by a detector with the result displayed as a chart known as a chromatograph—response (y-axis) Versus retention time (X-axis). In short, the chromatograph …