Chromatography Forum

Hello everybody.

What solvents are you recomending vor GC/MS.

n-Hexane, MeOH, EtOH,...... ?

Thanks

Mr.Brown

Whatever the sample disolves in. It is nice to have a solvent that will elute from the GC volumn ahead of the analyte of interest so you do not have to deal with significant signal from the solvent peak (or tail of the peak) and you may get some solvent effect sharpening the peak for you.

The choice of solvent is largely about the chromatography you can obtain.

Some solvents may go better with one GC column or another. Methanol on methyl silicon column, for examle, does not wet the column, so the injection must be warm enough to keep the methanol in the vapor phase to avoid splitting analyte peaks.

Thanks for the imput
I will keep that in mind

Go with less polar solvent where ever possible as volatility of polar analyte will be further reduced in polar solvents due to H-bonding with solvent.
Low molecular weight high density solvents (methanol) will have a higher vapor volume for the same injection volume and head pressure compared to high molecular weight low dense solvent (hexane). Expansion of the solvent beyond the volume of the liner could result in backflashes and contaminated spectra. Trace analysis that demand higher injection volume in splitless mode would require less expanding solvents.
Avoid plastics with all the solvents to avoid contamination from plasticizers.