We just noticed that our GC column is contaminated due to overloading with sample. We tried a method for cleaning it which consisted of a T of 240°C for the injector, a ramp of 200 to 220 °C, and 5uL of solvent injection, to no avail. Do you have any method or technique to clean a GC column that you could share with us?
6/10/21
Dear Gabriel,
One thing you can try is to set the oven temperature to ~10 degrees below the maximum allowable temperature for the column you are using and "bake" out the column overnight at normal gas flow rate. This sometimes works. This temperature is usually provided by the column manufacturer. If you don't have this information, you can contact the manufacturer to get it.
Another thing you can do is to replace the glass inlet liner in the injector. After many repeated injections, the liner can get "gunked up" with a lot of black carbonaceous matter. Some of this can vaporize and get into the column during subsequent injections and produce "ghost" (i.e., false) peaks.
If these suggestions don't work, you can also ask the manufacturer for help on how to clean the column.
I hope this information helps you.
Bill Colonna Ames, Iowa, USA [email protected]
As Noel says, it is not clear where the contamination is in the system. If the column is clean, changing the liner might help. If that does not do the trick, then you may need to disassemble the injector and clean it, including the gas lines attached to it.
Solvent rinsing kits may also be an option if baking out and higher flows cannot clean your column, of course, if the problem exists at your analytical column as the authors have indicated.
This is a very important issue to clean the GC column. After few injections, it is wise to clean the GC column. In order to clean the Gccolumn, the best way is to increase the column oven temperature in a isothermal method for long time, this way the column will be cleaned.
6/14/21
Dear Gabriel,
You have received many good suggestions from other investigators and they are worth trying.
There is another thing you can try. I assume that you are using a capillary GC column. In addition to the inlet itself, sometimes the first few centimeters of the inlet end of the column can get "gunked up" with carbonaceous matter and cause problems. If so, an easy solution is to disconnect the column from the inlet, break off ~5-10 cm from the column and discard it, then re-attach the column to the inlet. This will get rid of the junk, and it doesn't take long to do it. Good luck,
Bill Colonna Ames, Iowa, USA [email protected]
Please see this might help you
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/practical-guidelines-care-and-maintenance-capillary-gc-columns-2&ved=2ahUKEwjxk4rN75fxAhVJPBoKHWbLDAoQFjAUegQIHRAC&usg=AOvVaw2WGrK6Jh7qef0ANIx7nXkL&cshid=1623699443514
Hello,
almost all advises given up to this moment are perfectly good and should work.
I would just add one thing - try to use diffrent types of solvents in terms of polarity. If the contamination is stuck in the column, that may help to rinse them out.
Kind regrds, Jacek Łyczko
Hello,
No specific method for this cleaning,
Column conditioning is the only way,
At isothermal temperature (initial temp. oven and inlet temperature) and keep inside the outlet end open and flow rate increase above routine analysis usage (0.5 ml/min) and then cool it give ramping program nearly 16 to 18 hrs with increasing oven temperature clear all the things.
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