Agilent GC Calculators

Answer

This Information Applies To: Agilent GCs

Issue

Agilent provides free GC calculators and tools to assist with method development.  

Background

Tips: The calculators are available for downloading at Agilent.com.

Vapor Volume Calculator

Determines the expansion volume of a GC sample solvent at a given inlet temperature and pressure for a specific liner. Performing this calculation ensures that the liner is not overloaded, which can cause backflash.

This phenomenon can result in poor reproducibility, sample loss, ghost peaks, carry-over, split peaks, tailing peaks, loss of resolution, and system contamination. The calculator provides a visual indication of whether the liner capacity will be exceeded.

Users can add solvents and liners. Learn how to use it in the article: Using the GC Vapor Volume Calculator.

Pressure Flow Calculator

The Pressure Flow Calculator uses the column dimensions, oven temperature, and detector outlet pressure to calculate either the pressure required for a target flow, or the flow provided at a target pressure. Use this calculator to see the impact of different column dimensions, different carrier gases, or see how the pressure/flow relationship changes when the detector is changed, for example from an FID to an MSD.

For more details, see the article: Using the Pressure Flow Calculator.

Solvent Vent Calculator

The Solvent Vent Calculator helps you determine reasonable starting conditions for your large-volume injection (LVI) method. Large-volume injections, supported on MMI and PTV inlets, increase the amount of sample on column. Because the injection is comprised mostly of solvent, too much of which can affect the analysis, the excess solvent should be vented. Several common GC solvents are prepopulated in the tool to provide the most accurate physical properties for the calculations. By entering a few method details, such as inlet pressure and temperature, a user may evaluate different injection parameters to model the inlet behavior at various injection volumes and vent flows.

For more details, see the article: Using the Solvent Vent Calculator.

GC Method Translator

The GC Method Translator allows you to port a current GC method to another GC while ensuring that relative retention order is maintained, i.e., peaks elute in the same order.

Use this tool whenever you want to speed up an analysis or change detectors (e.g., from FID to MS), carrier gas type, column dimensions, phase ratio (film thickness), column outlet pressure, or carrier gas flow rate. The tool rapidly calculates required head pressures, oven temperature program rates, and relative run times.

For more details, see the article: Using the GC Method Translator.

Steps to follow

Figure 1 demonstrates installing the calculators application.

Figure 1: Download the Agilent Calculators application

1. Go to the following link: GC Calculators and Method Translation Software | Agilent. 
2. Click Download GC Tools.
3. When the download is complete, perform one of the following:
   • Click browser menu arrow > Open File (Figure 2): 

          
     
     Figure 2: Downloaded Agilent calculators file
     
     

   • Navigate to the Downloads directory, double click the Agilent Technologies GC Calculators file, then double click the file a second time (Figure 3):

     
     
     Figure 3: Agilent GC calculators download file location
     
     

4. Follow the instructions in the InstallShield Wizard (Figure 4):

        
   
   Figure 4: Agilent GC calculators installation wizard.

Learn how to effectively operate your Agilent Gas Chromatograph:  GC-MULTI-21903 - GC Calculators: An Introduction eLearning course available from Agilent education