By jeffo on Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 01:16 pm:

I am new to the GC world. I hear that Restek columns are poor quality compared to Agilent. I recently bought a new RTX-5 from restek and am experiencing peak tailing. Agilent is more expensive. Does anyone have any opinions on the reputability of these 2 vendors? Thanks

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By Anonymous on Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 03:16 pm:

I prefer J & W columns. J & W was acquired by Agilent and can be purchased through them.

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By Anonymous on Wednesday, June 9, 2004 - 07:43 pm:

I have always thought of Restek as a very good company. When it comes to gas chromatography supplies and accessories, they are generally one-step ahead of everyone else. One example is they can make a column with a guard column attached - all as one continuous unit. I don't think anyone else has that.

Personally, I don't have a high opinion of Agilent. I think they sacrifice quality to save money on many of their products (I guess all companies do this to some extent - but they are particularly bad).

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By Anonymous on Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 12:56 am:

I agree with the above comment - I have had trouble with the deactivation using Agilent - they supplied columns only sealed with septa - and not flame sealed like Restek.

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By Anonymous on Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 05:08 am:

It would be nice if people who "bad mouth" companies at least identify themselve. Sounds like bitter competitors

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By Anonymous on Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 05:37 am:

I think you only learn from experience and experimenting. Different manufacturers produce different deactivations that are better for certain samples than others?
Anyone agree?
Maybe this is the better question?

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By Anonymous on Thursday, June 10, 2004 - 12:35 pm:

You must also know that restek has manufactured their first gc capillary column under an hp(agilent) patent!!!!!
They are good restek column ,good agilent,not always comparable,but simple better for one situations than another...

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By Anonymous on Friday, June 11, 2004 - 05:45 am:

Varian has a new line of columns, the VF series.
My experience is that these columns are very well deactivated and are extremely low in bleed.

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By Anonymous on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 06:10 am:

I know I have had problems with Phenomenex columns. I have returned to the J + W.

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By Beppe on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 - 08:46 am:

We use both Restek and Agilent GC columns; both are generally good; sometimes one is better in a specific situation, sometimes the other.
To the last Anonymous from June 10 : everybody is producing fused silica capillary columns under HP (now Agilent) patent, just because HP invented the fused silica capillary columns !
Before they were made of glass; imagine how easy they were to handle ...