Our Sunnyvale applications team recently released a technical note providing guidelines for diagnosing failing or damaged amino trap columns (Thermo Scientific Dionex AminoTrap columns) which are in-line pretreatment columns installed in place of the guard column before a carbohydrate monosaccharide analytical column (Thermo Scientific Dionex CarboPac column). The purpose of this particular trap column is to retain amino acids in the sample thus allowing the monosaccharides to be eluted free from interfering amino acids.

After offering a wallchart on HPLC troubleshooting (link takes you to the blog post on how to order the free wallchart), our HPLC chromatographers put their collective wisdom together and came up with even an easier way to troubleshoot your HPLC challenges: a free application that can be downloaded on iPhone, android, and Windows phones!

Here is a brief list of the troubleshooting areas covered in this wallchart. (For solutions, you will need the wallchart!)

OK, I have heard a lot of talk, questions, concerns… about the cost of helium and the ability to even get it for gas chromatography and GC-MS analysis, it is a heilum shortage.  It is getting harder and there are times when you will not be able to get your entire order due to rations, no one likes to be rationed.  So where do we look?  What are we to do?  As scientists we go back to the research.  If you are in a contract lab you also go back to business principles, look for better, faster, cheaper.  This is where it gets interesting… we all get back to using hydrogen as the carrier.  From the science direction you can get faster chromatography with better separations.  From the business side you get a less expensive and easy supply of gas, you get a lot of gas (that may not sound quite right but you get the point).  Wouldn’t it be great if you could just swap helium for hydrogen and keep running?  I hope you don’t think it will be an exact exchange… there will need to be a few things to consider as you make the change. 

As many of our ion chromatography (IC) customers are aware, last year we released a capillary IC system and this year a integrated high-pressure capillary IC system! Both systems have been performing really well in our and customer labs but questions do come up frequently on various fronts for customers considering the move to capillary IC.

We all get frustrated with problems when using gas chromatography instrumentation and the eternal troubleshooting question… Is it the method or the instrument that is not working?  It can be very hard to differentiate and to make matters worse it could be a little of both.  So now the question is; how do you separate the gas chromatograph or GC-MS instrument from the method to analyze your important sample? 

In our continuing series on the great features in the Thermo Scientific Dionex Chromeoleon Chromatography Data (CDS) software, here we present the interactive Charts feature. This feature provides the advantage of not needing to export data to create charts and with the data being dynamically updated results in charts that are always be consistent with the source data!

What do you do when you run into gas chromatography (GC) problems? Refer to this complimentary poster for troubleshooting! Supplies are limited so get your wallchart today by clicking the image on the right and filling out a brief form so that the wallchart can be mailed to you.

What do you do when you run into liquid chromatography (LC) problems? Refer to this complimentary poster for troubleshooting! Supplies are limited so get your wallchart today by clicking the image on the right and filling out a brief form so that the wallchart can be mailed to you.

Keep It Simple Software. Gas chromatorgraphy and mass spectrometry method development and method maintenance can get more and more complicated with longer and longer lists of compounds. GC-MS software is what makes things easy. There will be times when you need to have your hands on the instrument for method development. You need to choose your column and install it. You need to choose the injection technique and install the liner. You should also put standards and samples in the autosampler. Is there anything else, assuming the instrument is plugged in, turned on, and running?  Nope, that’s it. The rest of the time is spent in front of the software making adjustments. Now, let’s talk about the software that simplifies development and maintenance of methods.