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- Posts: 7
- Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 6:34 pm
I'm new here so please excuse my ignorance!
Through a friend of a friend I've been offered a Thermo GC-MS EI only system including the PC with mass spec data system and a liquid auto-sampler. It's going to cost me almost $10k so as a total GCMS virgin noob, I could really use some advice so as to avoid an expensive mistake. My background is "advanced hobbyist" and in times past I've been using the old traditional techniques of bench or "wet" chemistry to perform analysis, using the old tried and trusted methods such as melting point/boiling point determination and a shelf full of all manner of analytical test reagents; really old-time stuff which I have to say, has been incredibly useful for learning purposes over the years. However, I feel the time has come to jump into something a bit more 21st century.
Can anyone tell me if these machines have any known issues I should be checking for? How are they regarded within our field? And also whether it's possible to use Argon instead of the specified Helium for the carrier gas, since I can get a free supply of the former; not so the latter.
The model I'm considering is the same one (I think!) as is shown on the upper right photo of the Wikipedia page on CGMS machines:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chrom ... ectrometry
Thanks in advance for any informed advice!