Nitrogen: The Most Cost-Effective Makeup Gas for Gas Chromatography aerospace climate control electromechanical filtration fluid & gas handling hydraulics pneumatics process control sealing & shielding

Nitrogen: The Most Cost-Effective Makeup Gas for Gas Chromatography Peter Froelich, President Peak Media, Franklin, MA Abstract Helium has been used as a makeup or carrier gas in the gas chromatography process since the 1950s-1960s. However, there are several major disadvantages to helium: it is expensive and the supply can fluctuate, depending on natural gas production and national supply-and-demand factors. Helium is also only available in tanks. Nitrogen, on the other hand, performs just as well as helium as a carrier gas and is far less expensive. The supply of nitrogen gas is unlimited and...

Gas Separation Membrane Permeate Outer side dense Fiber wall porous Pressurized air Inner side open te Figure 2: Separation of nitrogen via a semi-permeable membrane. poison the catalyst. If halogenated hydrocarbons are present in the compressed air at a level exceeding 5 ppm, an auxiliary activated carbon scrubber can be used to avoid poisoning the catalyst. 3. Particulate filtration. A BQ-grade filter (99.99-percent efficient at 0.01 µ) is placed after the activated carbon filter to ensure that activated carbon particles are removed from the stream. 4. Hydrocarbon removal. A cartridge heater...

5. Elimination of contamination. An in-house nitrogen generator eliminates the possibility of introducing foreign materials when a new tank is installed. When a tank is used to provide nitrogen, the user must periodically break the connection between the supply and the detector to install a new tank, which could lead to the introduction of materials from the atmosphere that would have a negative impact on the FID measurement. Becoming Lean There is no question that in-house nitrogen gas generation saves money after the initial investment is recovered, typically within about one year. What is...