Douglas W. Later

Hand-portable gas chromatograph-toroidal ion trap mass spectrometer (GC-TMS) for detection of hazardous compounds

A novel gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) based on a miniature toroidal ion trap mass analyzer (TMS) and a low thermal mass GC is described. The TMS system has an effective mass/charge (m/z) range of 50–442 with mass resolution at full-width half-maximum (FWHM) of 0.55 at m/z 91 and 0.80 at m/z 222. A solid-phase microextraction (SPME) fiber mounted in a simple syringe-style holder is used for sample collection and introduction into a specially designed low thermal mass GC injection port. This portable GC-TMS system weighs <13 kg (28 lb), including batteries and helium carrier gas cartridge, and is totally self-contained within dimensions of 47×36×18 cm (18.5×14×7in.). System start-up takes about 3 min and sample analysis with library matching typically takes about 5 min, including time for column cool-down. Peak power consumption during sample analysis is about 80 W. Battery power and helium supply cartridges allow 50 and 100 consecutive analyses, respectively. Both can be easily replaced. An on-board library of target analytes is used to provide detection and identification of chemical compounds based on their characteristic retention times and mass spectra. The GC-TMS can detect 200 pg of methyl salicylate on-column. n-Butylbenzene and naphthalene can be detected at a concentration of 100 ppt in water from solid-phase microextraction (SPME) analysis of the headspace. The GC-TMS system has been designed to easily make measurements in a variety of complex and harsh environments.

Capillary Column Gas Chromatography of Environmental Polycyclic Aromatic Compounds

The methodologies are described for isolating clean fractions of polycyclic aromatic compounds from diverse environmental samples such as air particulate matter, sediments, and fish tissue. The common step in all procedures is the separation of the polycyclic aromatic compound fraction into well-defined chemical classes by adsorption chromatography on an alumina column. These procedures greatly facilitate the detailed characterization of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, sulfur heterocycles, and nitrogen heterocycles by capillary column gas chromatography.

Industrial applications of supercritical fluid chromatography: polymer analysis

SummaryPolymers can be difficult to fully characterize by conventional chromatographic methods [i.e., gas chromatography (GC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and size exclusion chromatography (SEC)] due to temperature instability, detector incompatibility, nonvolatility, molecular weight considerations or insufficient chromatographic efficiency. Capillary supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) offers several advantages for polymer analysis. Complex distributions can be resolved, low temperatures can be used and individual oligomers can be detected, allowing differences in molecular weight distributions to be quantitatively and qualitatively measured. In this paper, results will be shown for the analysis of various types of polymers demonstrating how changes in chromatographic parameters affect the analysis

Effect of process distillation on the distribution of amino polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in refined coal-derived liquids

Abstract After fractional distillation of SRC-I process solvent, 3- and 4-ring amino polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (amino PAH) are essentially absent from fractions boiling at