Today, we all know that the combination of a conventional injection procedure, a single analytical column and a selective detector often does not suffice to recognize and quantify all analytes of interest in a sample. During the eighties, the use of multidimensional approaches slowly began to make headway to help solve the many, and often complex, problems concerning the provisional identification, or confirmation of the presence, of analytes of interest, the design of separation systems with a considerably improved separation efficiency, and the generally felt need to incorporate the sample preparation in the total analytical procedure.

Two major branches emerged - hyphenation, which is often defined as the on-line combination of a separation technique and a spectroscopic detection device which provides structural information, and coupled-column techniques.Sometimes hyphenation is used to describe both of these branches, a practice that has also been followed when selecting the title of the present volume.

Gradually the glamour of hyphenation began to be recognised, and the hype and fascination were born.