kristen.sensabaughThe GC Calculators and Method Translation Software (MTS) is available for download from Agilent.com. The package includes:
The Vapor Volume Calculator. It can be used to determine 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 quick visual indication of whether the liner capacity will be exceeded. Users can add solvents and liners.
The Pressure Flow Calculator. It uses the dimensions of a known column, oven temperature of interest, and detector outlet pressure to calculate either the pressure required to achieve a target flow, or the flow that would be provided to the system at a target pressure. This calculator can be used to see the impact of changing to different column dimensions, evaluate behaviors of a method when different carrier gases are selected, or see how the pressure/flow relationship changes when the detector is changed, for example from an FID to an MSD.
The Solvent Vent Calculator. It can help 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 pre-populated 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.
The Method Translation Software. It 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.
