A study of some of the parameters in purge and trap gas chromatography

Summary

The most important operating parameters of a commercial purge and trap GC apparatus have been investigated. Band broadening problems arising from the slow desorption of compounds from the Tenax trap have been overcome by cryogenic focussing at the beginning of the column. Good results have been obtained with both packed and capillary columns. The sensitivity of the technique is sufficient to detect benzene in water at concentrations below 1μg kg⁻¹ (1 ppb).