Hi Kristine

This amines smell very intensive, maybe the odour-level is very low, in the range of ppm so you do not have so much free amine inside. The resins have a very high capacity, maybe you rinsed still unbonded Amine; possibly your NaOH is too strong and you have a hydrolysis, but this should be solved by propper rinse. Another possibility is that the amin might be already inside your sample, as a salt f.e., and you switch to the free form....do you use a complex fementation filtrate or something like that?

Thanks for the answer, Frank!

My sample is a wood pyrolysis condensate, and there shouldn't be anything amino-related in it. The NaOH concentration is probably the most realistic reason.

Kristine,

Strong base anion exchange resins undergo a decomposition reaction called Hofmann elimination when the resin is in the hydroxide form.  The product of this reaction is trimethylamine (TMA) for common strong base anion exchange resins. This reaction occurs at a very slow rate at room temperature but as Frank states above, you can smell TMA at very low concentrations.  I found one reference (http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/aegl/pubs/trimethylamine_interim_ornl_jun_2008c.pdf) stating the lower threshold of odor awareness for TMA is 0.51 ppb.  I wouldn't be concerned about smelling the TMA coming from the column as this is common, especially if this is the first time the resin has been put in the hydroxide form in some time.  Normally, with extended use of strong base resin the TMA smell is less pronounced.  Regardless of how you plan to use the resin the key point is that your observation is normal and the resin will function fine in spite of this due to the fact that only a tiny fraction of the resin capacity is lost through Hofmann elimination unless you are heating the resin during chromatography.