Chromatography Forum

Whats solvents can be inyected in GC, for non polar and semipolar capilaries columns?

Whats solvents can damage my columns, inyectors or detector (MSD and ECD)?

Can I inyect tetrahydrofuran, or methilem chloride.

Thanks,

< Not an avid GC user...

That said, you can inject whatever you like as long as you are aware of waht it will do when you inject it. Generally, you must be able to volitalize it and you have to show appropriate concern for what it does on evaporation. Some solvents evaporate nicely (octane) while others tend to expand tremendously (flashing), potentially contaminating your gas lines (chloroform, methylene chloride). When you take the needs of your detector into account, the list may well get shorter. MSDs, for example do not like to be fed salts. I'm not too sure about MSDs and am even less sure about ECDs.

Or, you could read the manuals for the GC & its detectors (not to mention the column literature). Chances are that they are online if not with the instrument...

Do not try to use methylene chloride or chloroform as a solvent on your ECD-system. This detector has a high sensitivity for Cl-containing compounds and may get dirty by using Cl-containing solvents. Probably you are not allowed to clean this detector yourself, so it could be an expensive try.

We use methylene chloride for most of our MSD-analyses (small and large-volume) without problems. Some MSD-analyses in our laboratory are done with pentane.

We use hexane as solvent for our ECD-analysis.

We use pentane, hexane and heptane as solvent on our FIDs (non-polar compounds like mineral oil)
We use water as solvent for our polar compounds on FID (WAX-column)

About the only things that can actually damage a modern bonded phase GC column are strong acids or bases. Salts can cause mechanical plugging, but usually no real damage. As noted above some solvents have a very large expansion volume, the most common being water and methanol. These won't damage anything, but your precision may not be too good.