Aerial view of campus with Williamsport, the Susquehanna River and Bald Eagle Mountain as a backdrop

Gas Chromatography (GC)

gc

Joe Keane is getting ready to analyze a sample on the Hewlett-Packard GC.

Gas Chromatography (GC) is one of the most effective separation technique known to chemists. Chromatography is always based on the partitioning of a mixture between a stationary phase and a mobile phase. In GC, the mobile phase is a gas (either He or N2) and the stationary phase is some waxy liquid coated within an inert support tube. Separtion is based on the relative volatilities of the various mixture components (more volatile components travel faster in the gaseous mobile phase). We use our GC's for reaction monitoring and quantitative work. The department possesses a Hewlett-Packard 5800 GC and a Varian 3700 GC, both equipped with capillary columns and flame ionization detectors. The Thermo mass spectrometer is also mated to a Thermo Trace GC.