Chromatography Forum

I have been asked to analyze water samples with Archon autosampler in the soil mode. This does not make sense to me since the archon purges the whole vial. Unless I use VAOs with headspace, I can not see it done (& I do not think this is the right way). Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you.

We run both in soil and water mode. We usually purge waters in soil mode when their is a possiblity they may foam or have a large amount of fine sediment. We just transfer 5ml (or your sample size you normally purge) to another 40 ml vials and set to purge as a soil. You must calibrate your ical in soil mode because your peak shapes may be very different and your responses.

As above it can be done without much problem just remember to not use full vials( I have done this before and the result is not good ).

It is not the most ideal way to run samples since you have to manually open the vial to prepare it for analysis which compromises the integrity of the sample somewhat. Just make sure you run on a calibration performed under the same conditions. You will be purging more volume than what you put into the vial since you will need to add blank water to that sample to transfer the internal standards into the sample if you use internal standards. As long as you keep the sample volume below the level of the return ports in the purging needle you will be ok, if the vial is full it will push a volume of water over onto the trap which is not a good thing.