Overcoming Cost and Supply: Let’s Use Nitrogen

Oral Presentation

Prepared by L. Marotta1, J. Rebholz2, T. Hartlein2, R. Bardsley2
1 - PerkinElmer Instruments, 710 Bridgeport Ave., Shelton, Shelton, CT, 06484, United States
2 - Teledyne Tekmar, 4736 Socialville Foster Rd., Mason, OH, 45040, United States


Contact Information: lee.marotta@perkinelmer.com; 914-954-1779


ABSTRACT

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) method 8260 is regulated to protect people’s health. EPA method 8260 uses Purge and Trap (P&T) to concentrate the targets and minimize water introduction; gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectrometry (MS) detection. Because of the concern of the supply of helium, which has caused prices to soar, chromatographers are investigating alternative carriers. This presentation focuses on optimizing GC and MS: Hydrogen and Nitrogen investigated

Traditionally, these methods are carried out using helium as the purge and GC carrier gas. However, due to its increasing cost and suggested limited supply, alternative carrier gases, such as hydrogen and nitrogen are being considered. The goal of this research was to investigate the use of alternative carrier gases while meeting EPA 8260 method criteria.

This presentation discusses the results of using nitrogen and hydrogen as alternate carrier gases to helium for EPA methods 8260. Data is presented showing that nitrogen could be a more suitable and desirable carrier gas when compared to helium.