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Hydrogen as carrier gas: Always available, Cost effective and Fast

02 Apr 2009

blog hydrogen as carrier gas always available cost effective and fast 01

Hydrogen is on the agenda again. Since the helium crisis many labs are now considering and that’s smart. All chromatographers agree hydrogen is the best choice, but safety management usually rules. Hydrogen can be generated safely in the lab and if you make the calculations, you will find the generators will pay themselves back in no time.

In a time of reducing costs, hydrogen should be a very welcome solution. You can reduce analysis times by a factor 2 using similar hardware, the main changes will be to set a different oven temperature program.. and deal with the safety aspects.. For the safety aspect, you may choose to set a max hydrogen flow. Also hydrogen sensors can be used. The reduced cost per analysis will easily pay for those sensors.. No worries for Hydrogen from the split vent: it dilutes with incredible speed, so that is no issue..

If you want to further minimize the risks, think of using MXT metal columns.. you’ll be surprised by the inertness..

Author

  • Jaap de Zeeuw

    Jaap is a world-renowned chromatographer with over 40 years of experience, including 15 years with Restek and 27 years with Varian/Chrompack prior to joining Restek. Throughout his career, Jaap has focused the chromatographic challenges of industrial analysis. For his 1979 graduation from The Institute for Higher Education, where he specialized in chemistry, Jaap authored a paper titled "The Challenge of Coating Flexible Fused Silica Capillary Columns" and has since distinguished himself as an authority on the subject. Jaap has been directly involved with the creation of numerous chemically bonded columns, including the first bonded PEG column and the stabilized PLOT columns widely used in the petrochemical arena. He has also helped develop new techniques, such as fast GC-MS using vacuum GC technology (low-pressure GC or LPGC). Over his innovative career, he has filed several patents for his work. Based out of the Netherlands, Jaap is extensively published and regularly travels internationally to share his knowledge. After retiring from Restek, Jaap founded CreaVisions, where he works as a GC Consultant and teaches master classes on key GC topics as well as on creativity in science.

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