A high-precision gas chromatograph has been used to study porosity effects by comparing the elution behavior of methane, ethane, and isobutane on 4A and 5A molecular sieves. Methane and ethane, which could enter the sieve crystallites, showed tailing independent of sample size. For the first time in gas chromatography, changes in retention volume were observed with changes in flow rate. Furthermore, methane and ethane showed a pronounced decrease in column efficiency with increasing temperature in the mass-transfer limited region rather than an increase. Those effects were attributed to slow diffusion within the zeolite because isobutane, which was excluded from the zeolite pores, did not show those effects.