Entech Instruments has announced the 7150 Headspace Preconcentrator, designed to recover thermally labile compounds for GC and GCMS applications.
The 7150 is able to recover C2 to C25 compounds at PPM to sub-PPB levels, including labile compounds unable to survive strong adsorbents or a hot GC injector.
A first-stage implements 'Active SPME' allowing compounds from C12 to C25 to be trapped and desorbed quantitatively.
The initial SPME stage eliminates the exposure of heavy VOCs and SVOCs to strong adsorbents, allowing effective recovery and transmission to the GC.
Lighter, unretained compounds that are typically missed using classical 'diffusion-based SPME' are recovered utilising a CO2 cooled Tenax trap.
Cold trapping allows recovery of sulphur compounds, amines and other thermally labile compounds that will not survive exposure to strong adsorbents.
Dean Switching rather than rotary valves is used to control flows, eliminating absorptive surfaces and dead volume associated with the carryover of heavier and more polar compounds.
Moisture is removed prior to GCMS sample injection using direct vapour to solid phase cold trap dehydration that does not cause the loss of other headspace compounds.
'The 7150 Headspace Preconcentrator can quantitatively trap samples from 0.5 to 1,000cc to maximise the dynamic range of GCMS systems,' said Dan Cardin, president of Entech Instruments.
'Proper volume measurement and analyte recovery over a large range of sample sizes is made possible by a miniaturised, fused silica lined flow path that reduces inaccuracies associated with fluctuating sample pressures,' he added.
The combination of quantitative volume measurements and recovery of the wide range of GC compatible headspace compounds, enables the true determination of aroma significant compounds during food and flavour testing.
The 7150 system is compatible with the Entech 7405 and 7500A robotic autosamplers for research and development and production lab applications.
Other applications for the instrument include environmental testing (air, water and soil), industrial hygiene, breath analysis, forensics, product testing, homeland security, package testing and residual solvent testing in pharmaceuticals.
The instrument system will be exhibited at the 2009 Pittsburg Conference (Pittcon) at the McCormick Center in Chicago on booth 4025.
