HI everyone
Is it possible to reseal the Agilent Gas Clean trap after opening or will removing it from the holder just lead to O2 and water saturation. I was hoping to remove one and attach the plugs when doing maintenance before reattaching it once I am finished
I am referring to the CP17973 trap shown below
Thanks
Kevin
Pushing the plugs back in will help. When new, those are packed with nitrogen. On use they are full of the carrier gas - typically helium but could be hydrogen. Helium or hydrogen will escape much faster than nitrogen. It will get past the O rings. It may take some time for that to start to happen, though, a day or longer. With the plugs in there the amount of air/water going back in will be very small.
Hopefully you can do the required maintenance in a timely manner and get that trap back on quickly. Set the inlet and oven temperatures to off or at least less than 40° C before reinstalling the trap. Then set the inlet to SPLIT mode, 400ml/min, Gas Saver OFF, and let it purge the trap for, oh, ten or fifteen minutes. Then load your normal method and start getting it ready to run again.
If you want to remove the trap for future maintenance you could plumb one three way valve in front of the trap and one after with a jumper tube in between so that you could isolate the trap itself and not even have to remove it.
You could also plumb this way to be able to vent any air in the line from changing the tank to atmosphere before the trap. Shut off the valve on the left. Change the tank. Open the valve pointing up. Turn on the tank to vent to atmosphere. Close the valve pointing up and open the valve on the left to the GC.
See: (+) How to Change Your Helium GCMS Carrier Gas Tank - Two ways - Files - GC/MS - Agilent Community
