Cleaning GC inlet liner

[Ed Hudson]

Our GC inlet liner is dirtied with some hideous-looking residue, an
organic pyrolysate of some kind, at the top of the glass wool.

Can anyone recommend a cleaning procedure, or critique the following
proposal?

- rinse with solvents, including some water to get rid of any salts
- short soak or wash in aqueous or methanolic KOH
- muffle furnace overnight at 400 deg. C

(maybe only one of the last two steps is necessary)

Then deactivate both the liner and the glass wool with 5%
dichlorodmethylsilane in toluene.

Alternatively, all this could be done on just the liner, and the glass
wool replaced.

I haven't found anything from manufacturers on cleaning inlet liners,
presumably because most would rather sell you a new one.

Thanks.

Ed Hudson
McGill University

[David Stone]

In article

Post by Ed Hudson
Our GC inlet liner is dirtied with some hideous-looking residue, an
organic pyrolysate of some kind, at the top of the glass wool.
Can anyone recommend a cleaning procedure, or critique the following
proposal?
- rinse with solvents, including some water to get rid of any salts
- short soak or wash in aqueous or methanolic KOH
- muffle furnace overnight at 400 deg. C
(maybe only one of the last two steps is necessary)
Then deactivate both the liner and the glass wool with 5%
dichlorodmethylsilane in toluene.
Alternatively, all this could be done on just the liner, and the glass
wool replaced.
I haven't found anything from manufacturers on cleaning inlet liners,
presumably because most would rather sell you a new one.

We use the Supelco FocusLiner liners. It's much easier to just
replace them, especially when they're badly contaminated. A pack
of 5 is a lot cheaper than replacing the column prematurely!
(This is in the teaching/research lab, where you never know what's
going to be injected next...)

I believe you can buy silanized glass wool, if you really want
to pack/repack them for yourself.

[JJ]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:08:28 -0400, David Stone

Post by David Stone
In article

Post by Ed Hudson
Our GC inlet liner is dirtied with some hideous-looking residue, an
organic pyrolysate of some kind, at the top of the glass wool.
Can anyone recommend a cleaning procedure, or critique the following
proposal?
- rinse with solvents, including some water to get rid of any salts
- short soak or wash in aqueous or methanolic KOH
- muffle furnace overnight at 400 deg. C
(maybe only one of the last two steps is necessary)
Then deactivate both the liner and the glass wool with 5%
dichlorodmethylsilane in toluene.
Alternatively, all this could be done on just the liner, and the glass
wool replaced.
I haven't found anything from manufacturers on cleaning inlet liners,
presumably because most would rather sell you a new one.

We use the Supelco FocusLiner liners. It's much easier to just
replace them, especially when they're badly contaminated. A pack
of 5 is a lot cheaper than replacing the column prematurely!
(This is in the teaching/research lab, where you never know what's
going to be injected next...)
I believe you can buy silanized glass wool, if you really want
to pack/repack them for yourself.

I could not agree more!! they are cheap and cleaning and
redeactivating with silanes sucks!

[David Bostwick]

Post by Ed Hudson
Our GC inlet liner is dirtied with some hideous-looking residue, an
organic pyrolysate of some kind, at the top of the glass wool.
Can anyone recommend a cleaning procedure, or critique the following
proposal?
- rinse with solvents, including some water to get rid of any salts
- short soak or wash in aqueous or methanolic KOH
- muffle furnace overnight at 400 deg. C
(maybe only one of the last two steps is necessary)
Then deactivate both the liner and the glass wool with 5%
dichlorodmethylsilane in toluene.
Alternatively, all this could be done on just the liner, and the glass
wool replaced.
I haven't found anything from manufacturers on cleaning inlet liners,
presumably because most would rather sell you a new one.
Thanks.
Ed Hudson
McGill University

My previous procedure
-sonicate in nitric acid
-rinse with water
-sonicate in Micro, a soap that leaves no residue
-rinse with acetone
-dry in 120C oven

When I wanted to use the liner, I soaked it for about 30 minutes in the DCDMS
solution you use.

Now I put new ones in.

[Bob M]

GC liners are a disposable item. Most of my work is with short packed
columns. The big advantage you can put in some awful crappy samples
that would stuff up a capillary column
I clean out and repack all my own liners.
Pull out all the wool packing wash with dilute HCl to which I have
added a bit of sodium fluoride Rinse with plenty of water and vac oven
dry before resilanising then repack with silanised glass wool.
I remember on one job when I was injecting raw beer samples I had to
replace the glass liner about every ten samples.

Bob M
www.molab.co.nz