Chromatography Forum

I've looked through the previous threads for the Merlin microseal, and although there is some amount of information on troubleshooting systems equipped with them, I have not found any evaluations of how well the Merlin itself works. On the one hand the promise of being able to run thousands of injections without changing septa is alluring; on the other, I see hints that they may not be that great of a product (I read somewhere that the insert tells you to expect a leakage of several mL/min right out of the box? really?!?) Can any of you give me your impressions of this product?

I have a system that seems like it would be the perfect use of this product, but I'd like some opinions on how well I should expect it to work before I place the order. This system an Agilent 6890 that is injecting about 100 samples per day into a split/splitless inlet. The split is 1:10 and the maximum inlet pressure is about 32 psi (hydrogen carrier). We are currently using Agilent #5183-4761 rubber septa, changed every 100 samples (i.e. daily). Should I expect the Merlin to perform better than rubber septa in this application, or will I see leakage leading to premature column wear due to oxygen contamination of the carrier?

My experience has been about 2,000+ injections with helium carrier gas at up to 40 psi on an old HP5890. I don't know how they work with hydrogen.
You need to check for leaks regularly because when they start to leak it is barely noticeable at first.