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How can I clean a gold seal?
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:24 pm
by lcgcfan
Is there a way for me to clean a gold seal and reuse it? Thanks in advance.
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:40 pm
by chromatographer1
Most users decline to reuse these seals due to the possible (yea, even likely) poor resealing in the inlet.
The cost of the gold seal is less than the cost of the wasted time trouble shooting problems with the sample injection later which will require a new gold seal anyway.
Don't spend a dollar to save a nickel, you end up losing 95 cents.
best wishes,
Rod
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:34 am
by thohry
Anyway, in case you do not have a new replacement, I should think you can use alumina powder to clean it (like doing with ion source of GC/MS). Just 15 minutes or so.
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 10:18 am
by gcguy
We don't clean ours, however we are using the old ones in an attempt to gold plate a desk!
GCguy
Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 2:47 pm
by Don_Hilton
The rule on resealing knife edge seals is don't try. Because the knife edge cuts an inpression into the flat surface of the seal, you would have to set the knife edge in the cut exactly the same way on resealing it as it came apart. Any small particles present - such as a small bit of alumina powder - or dust, will change the surface of the cut and it will not match. An attempt to reuse a gold seal in a GC inlet is not a good idea.
If you do not have a replacement, to not remove the old seal. (Of course, if you are failing with decomposition of DDT in the inlet or a similar test, you have a problem...)
Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:52 am
by chemwipe
One of the GCMS chemists I used to work with used some kind of green fine grit abrasive paper to clean off parts when he was doing maintenance on his instrument. I remember running out of inlet seals one time. He showed me how to clean off a used one. Take the side facing the injection rub it a few times on the paper to remove any film and associated gunk, sonicating before and after with methanol.
That being said, I haven't done this in years. I makes sure I'm always stocked with inlet seals. I was keeping some old ones just in case, but I've never needed to keep/clean them - so I threw them all out.
As chromatographer1 said:
Don't spend a dollar to save a nickel, you end up losing 95 cents.
Make sure you have enough consumables at all times!
John
Posted: Fri Sep 10, 2010 9:42 pm
by EnvironLab
Sometimes I'll clean the seal in place with qtips and solvent. Just make sure you disconnect the column first and don't flood the vent line.