Maximise Your Gas Chromatography Performance

Choosing the proper items for routine system maintenance and new column installation can save costly downtime and rework, plus help prevent inaccurate chromatographic results. For the gas chromatographer, choosing the correct items when upgrading and replacing parts and accessories for their system can bring on many challenges due to the vast array of commercially available products. Supelco (USA) offer their own unique products, as well as products from some of the most trusted names in the industry, to assist in making the selection process easier.

Supelco’s exclusive rubber formulation means that the Thermogreen LB-2 Septa range is the ideal choice for chromatographers. Their moulded Thermogreen LB-2 septa offer the perfect combination of temperature range, low bleed and easy puncturability, and come in two variants – with injection hole is for autosampler injections, manual injections and/or SPME applications, and a solid disc version is for manual injections.  

Supelco is recognised as a leader in the manufacturing of high quality inlet liners. A regular schedule of inlet liner replacement as part of a preventative maintenance routine will help prevent adsorption problems that can drastically affect chromatography if left unchecked. Inlet liners should be highly inert and manufactured to the strictest of tolerances. Proprietary high temperature silanization (exclusively from Supelco) ensures inertness, and Supelco’s in-house glass shop ensures consistent dimensions that meet, or exceed, GC manufacturers’ strict tolerances. Inlet liners that are packed use a high-quality glass wool, deactivated using a proprietary silanization process (again, exclusively from Supelco).

The use of a wool plug in inlet liners has been used for many years to promote the rapid vaporization of the entire sample, minimise mass discrimination and prevent non-volatile material from entering the column. FocusLiner inlet liners incorporate a unique design that prevents shifting of the wool plug during repeated injections or sudden inlet pressure changes. Popular FocusLiner inlet liners are listed below. Other inlet liners can be found in Supelco’s catalogue and on their website.

Reliable, accurate and easy to use Optiflow Bubble Flowmeters Automate the ‘positive displacement’ technique, which works independent of the type, mass, or mixture of gas being measured, and combines the simplicity and versatility of a bubble meter with the speed and accuracy of a microprocessor. Optical sensors respond accurately to the passage of a bubble, and the instrument also features an easy to read, accurate digital display, eliminating the need for tedious bubble watching, timing and flow rate/time conversions.

In addition to all of the above products, Supelco also offers two brands of GC autosampler syringes, GC autosampler vials, vial accessories, PID lamps, wire brush detector cleaning kits, purifiers for most applications, particle and oil filters, tubing, cutters and fittings, valves amd gauges, leak detectors, pressure regulators, and gas generators. Plus, parent company Sigma-Aldrich provides high-purity GC solvents, suitable for a wide variety of applications (pesticide residue analysis (PRA), metabolites, volatiles, other environmentally relevant substances and preservatives), which can be found on Supelco's website. 

To find out more about how Supelco can help you maximise your chromatography performance, contact them today or visit their website.