[dfodor]

Hi,

I would have a question concerning HP-1 GC column. According to Agilent web page it is 100% dimethylpolysiloxane. For my reactions I would like to use water as solvent. My question is whether this column is sensitive to water? As the column is completely apolar I would expect that water can be used as solvent and it does not damage the column but I would like to ask those who have more experience with gc.

Thank you

Daniel

[marquis]

You shouldn't use water as a solvent on gc.

Having said that, I was forced to use it on some samples by a non-technical manager.

The few samples I ran (say 20) didn't seem to hurt the instrument or the column.  The chromatography was very poor.  We had to retest with a liquid/liquid extraction, which drastically improved the results.  The column being used was a capillary HP-5, 30 meter, microbore.  The detector was mass spec, with an extended solvent delay time set.

[marquis]

By the way, that was a megabore column. Not a microbore.  Too tired last night and made some typos.

[dfodor]

Thank you for your reply. The chromatograms were awful when I used water, now I am going to develop an optimal method for the measurement.

Best regards
Daniel