Chromatography Forum

In my lab, I have an Agilent XCT plus ion trap LC/MS. Recently got a project to run in APCI, and the mobile phase were hexane and isopropanol. I typically use N2 gas from the liquid N2 dewar as dry and nebulizer gases (the instrument is used almost around the clock). Accidently I found some paper saying that the hexane has some explosive nature under the presence of air, which means that the N2 in use should be oxygen free. Ordering and using such O2-free N2 tanks are very inconvenient here. Wondering if there are people who have such experience to use hexane as mobile phase under ESI/APCI, what kind of gas they are choosing.

Found an article using hexane in APCI, said just used nitrogen.

http://www.appliedbiosystems.com.au/114AP12.pdf

did a google search using hexane apci explosions, found several internet links. See link below found..

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.tech ... 2002-04%3F&

Thanks. Sailor. I will temporarily use such tanks, although some people think it is not a big deal to use the common N2 tanks in your posted link.