Jaap de Zeeuw
Restek is pleased to announce the participation of Jaap de Zeeuw in the 10th Balaton Symposium on High-Performance Separation Methods, which will be held September 2–4 in Siófok, Hungary. The Balaton Symposium is organized by the Hungarian Society for Separation Sciences every odd year, and it has grown to become one of the most important European separation science events. It is a highly technical and focused meeting that draws many important international speakers. The lecture abstract is presented below and more information on the event is available at: http://www.balaton.mett.hu/ For the full scientific program, visit http://www.balaton.mett.hu/?nic=program
Presentation Abstract
A Simple Way to Use Nitrogen Instead of Helium as the Carrier Gas, while Maintaining Exactly the Same Separation Efficiency, Retention Times, and Peak Elution Order, without Changing the Oven Temperature Conditions
For several reasons, there is interest in replacing helium with a different carrier gas in gas chromatography. Hydrogen is the obvious choice, but there are some concerns with safety and reactivity. It is also possible to use nitrogen, but this is often not considered because it has a low optimal velocity and flow rate. However, by using method translation and chromatogram modeling, it is clear that the loss of efficiency observed when using nitrogen can be perfectly compensated for by using a smaller ID capillary of a shorter length. By replacing a 30 m x 0.25 mm column with a 20 m x 0.15 mm column, identical separations can be obtained in the same analysis time when using nitrogen instead of helium–with the exact same oven programming conditions. Even the inlet pressures are very close. The only price that has to be paid is a loss in loadability, which means that this concept will not work for every application, but it will be very useful for many. Besides the guaranteed availability, using nitrogen offers a big advantage in the cost and consumption volume of carrier gas, meaning cost per analysis will also benefit significantly.
