Dear Colleagues,
I need your help. I have Thermo TSQ Quantum XLS coupled with Trace-1310 GC. Unfortunately, there were oil in He tank, which were sold with instrument. It's already 1.5 years ago from that terrible moment, but my MS still non-operational (alkane series is too high). My vendors can't do anything, but they are also don't want to change this instrument. Did anyone can help me with this trouble? What should I do? How can I clean this mess?
P.S. Sorry for my English...
Dear Marcelo,
Thank you for response. Of course, Thermo never sell gases, I get it from my vendor in Russia. I'm already checked all tubing and change them and He tank (gas filter was changed too). For now I installed stainless steel tubing and new filter. After that I tried to find the place of contamination: I capped transfer line using blind ferrule and nut and turn on MS. After 24 h I checked vacuum (2.07*10^-6 Torr) and turned on filament. And I still can see hydrocarbon contamination. How could it be? I can't understand. If contamination near by electron multiplier, I'll see similar spectra in MS/MS mode, with turned on collision cell. But I never see it. So I suppose, that contamination near by ion source or first quadrupole. I already cleaned up all in the ion source chamber, washed and dry ion source (include ceramics), and changed the whole source. And it doesn't work... I don't understand, how could it be... When I'm turned on calibration gas, intensity of hydrocarbon peaks doesn't change, so that tubes are clean too...
Dear Sir,
Thank you! I'm already read this manual... Unfortunately, this is not my case :-( But anyway, thank you!
I remember that before I started my PhD the old Finnigan Mat GC/MS in the lab was contaminated with oil from the diffusion pump. Our service company took the MS to their shop and washed the MS chamber thoroughly with toluene. Not sure if this is helpful. What solvent did you use?
Dear Inka,
Thank you! I have used few solvents: chloroform, methanol, acetone. I don't know, is it possible, that contamination stayed in turbo pump chamber?
I do not know; my guess is that the contamination comes from within the MS chamber.
Have a look at this blog: http://www.chromforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=22868
Look at the contamiantion section from the following pdf (it is from agilent, but might apply to you as well): http://www.sisweb.com/art/pdf/ms-maint.pdf
Maybe just call the Thermo helpline and go through the problem with them. I know that at least the Agilent guys are super helpful.
Dear Inka,
Thank you! Well, I guess I can only wait for the answer from Thermo tech support... Maybe I'll try to wash all chamber again... Thank you!
- Badges
- Science topic