Chromatography Forum

Hi, I am wondering if anyone has any experience with an oxygen-flame ionisation detector (O-FID)?

I am curious as to their general ease of use, maintenance, compatibility issues with Agilent etc

As far as I am aware, Wasson make the only O-FID on the market and there appears to be scant information available apart from the ASTM D5599.

If anyone has used an O-FID I would like to hear about your experiences.

TIA

ardee,

Don't have personal experience with O-FID. Good article by DiSanzo (jrnl of chrom sci, v28, p73, 1990) about his experience with the unit. Also a chapter by Goekeler (Selective detectors, Wiley and Sons, 1995) on it's construction and use. There was also an article by Consci Corp. on building your own that was on the web long ago.

It is my impression, in talking to just a couple of folks, that the high temperature reactor is a bear to make work consistently.

I am pretty sure Siemens still makes them (Goekeler works for them), I believe that Thermo (CE side) still does as well (they have a patent on some aspect of it.)

The other question that comes to mind is what do you want to do with it? If f they are light oxygenates, there is no need for an O-Fid, there are a number of ways around it.

Best regards,

AICMM

No experience with Agilent but I was with Fisons and sold a few O-FIDs. The early ones circa 1990 were useless , almost impossible to stop the catalyst from getting contaminated. The latter ones post 94 worked and was pattented but they still did not prove popular. All the sites I know in the UK are now running the Varian/Bruker Low Ox systems

Thanks for your feedback. I am really concerned about leaks and detection limits and with no reps in Australia, I'm feeling like it's not going to be worth the ~$70,000 gamble just on the off chance it might work for us. It is also probably a bad sign that there are very few papers published using this detector.

Thanks once again to those who replied