0.53mm wide bore MXT Metal MicroPacked Columns do Gases and Fit in any Standard GC

I always have been working on PLOT columns to make them retentive and highly efficient. Great was my surprise what you can do with adsorption materials when they are correctly packed into a 0.53mm MXT capillary..

Separation of volatiles can be well done using adsorption chromatography. Using high retentive adsorbents, unique separations can be done at higher temperatures. Additionally, adsorbents are difficult to destroy, resulting in long column life times.

PLOT columns like alumina, Porous polymers and molsieves, have high efficiency, but a limitation is the loadability. Also when used with valve systems, often the injection error makes the introduced band broad, which compromises the columns efficiency. Another challenge is that many commercial PLOT columns still have issues with particle release, which can cause damage to valves, detection devices and also the retention time reproducibility.

Another way to make use of the selectivity of the adsorption materials is to use the micropacked column. Restek developed a packing procedure and unique seal, to pack 0.53mm MXT columns with adsorbents, providing new application options

-          Using the full Selectivity of adsorbents like Shincarbon, Molecular sieves, Porous polymers

-          High loadability and retention for volatile compounds

-          No particle release whatsoever as it’s a packed column

-          Can be coiled at very small diameters, flows 1-4 mL/min

Additionally, all 0.53mm columns can be used in any capillary GC, meaning and capillary injection technologies can be used with these columns also.

Successful packings include shincarbon allowing fast CO and CO2 measurement in air; Also Molsieve 5A, doing permanent gases including CO in 70 seconds.

The use of Siltek deactivated SS tubing also guarantees the elution of polar and reactive analytes   Something to consider. A poster was presented at latest Riva symposium. Special thanks to Tom Barone for excellent work in developing packing procedures for these 0.53mm columns.