Advanced and Applied Gas Chromatography

Usually held in the first week of December each year -Tuesday to Friday inclusive

Course content
(there may be small changes in the practicals dependent on instrument availability)

Day 1

 

 

Lecture 1

Introduction and Overview

Revision of basic GC, FID, inlet splitter.
Subsequent focus on capillary GC;
van Deemter equation, plates, HETP, capacity factor.
Practical operating requirements

Practical 1

Set up a GC system

Installation of columns, measuring gas flows, injection techniques.
Measuring retention time, peak area

Lecture 2

Injection systems

Injection modes; split, splitless, purged, on-column, PTV.
Solvent effects, carrier gas effects

Practical 2

Basic separations

Develop initial separation using N2; switch to he and repeat. Split injection modes only

Day 2

 

 

Lecture 3

Difficult analyses

Cryogenic, high temperature, volatiles, gases, pyrolysis, PTV, SPME, purge and trap

Practical 3

Split-splitless injection

Use polar and non-polar columns. Use Grob injection. Do TP analyses of simple and wide boiling point mixtures

Lecture 4

GC Detectors

FID, AFID, TCD, ECD, FPD, PID, GC-MS

Practical 4

Complex analyses

Mixtures of terpenes, solvent mix, xylenes.
Compare analyses using different injection modes.

 

Review of results

End of day discussion session; concludes approx. 7 pm

Day 3

 

 

Lecture 5

Special techniques

Advanced injection methods (OCI, PTV, LVI)
Special analyses
Switching valves and examples
Heart cutting
Multi-dimensional GC and GC-MS
SPME

Practical 5

Application examples

Analyse unknowns; qualitative and quantitative

Day 4

 

 

No lecture

 

 

Practical 6

 

Complete previous day's samples

 

Review and discussion

Finishes approx. 1.30 pm