Recently, natural products chemistry has undergone explosive growth due to advances in isolation techniques, synthetic and biosynthetic approaches as well as spectroscopic and chromatographic methods.
The advent of computers and Fourier transform completely revolutionized the detection and identification of organic compounds. Modern automated instruments allow very small samples in the nanogram (109 g) range to be characterized in a very short time. The application of Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance (FTNMR) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) allows recovery of the sample in contrast to mass spectrometric (MS) determination which is a destructive but quite often a necessary technique.
Modern methods used to separate complex organic mixtures utilizing gas-liquid chromatography (GLC), high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), and droplet counter-current (DCC) chromatography can separate samples rapidly and efficiently in the picogram range. This has been impossible until recently. Coupling the chromatographic instruments to spectrometers enables a partially automated analysis in an even shorter period of time. The following coupling of chromatographic instruments has been performed: GC-MS, GC-FTIR, GC-MI-FTIR, GC-UV-VIS, HPLC-MS, HPLC-FTIR, HPLC-FTNMR and MS-MS.
These semi automated systems of analyzing and characterizing small samples are vital to the natural product organic chemist and biochemist for the detection of highly active substances in extremely low concentrations in living organisms. A typical example is in the field of pheromones which includes insect sex attractants that differ quite markedly in many insects. Their concentration has often been found in the 109–1012 g range.