Abstract

System suitability testing of a GC is essential to verify its suitability for intended application. The GC always uses a carrier gas and column temperature, which may impact on its suitability parameters. This study is aimed to evaluate the effects of carrier gas flow rate (FLRT) and column temperature (CLTP) on the system suitability parameters (SSP) of GC-ECD for SF6 measurement such as retention time/tR, response factor/RF, theoretical plate numbers/N, and asymmetric factor/As. The evaluation was conducted by carefully profiling the SF6 chromatogram and the data obtained were used to calculate the tR, RF, N, and As values. It was found that the tR increases linearly (R2 = 0.9978) by increasing the FLRT, but decreases linearly (R2 = 0.9991) by increasing the CLTP. The RF decreases linearly (R2=0.9939) by increasing the FLRT. Interestingly, the RF was affected by the CLTP with 2nd polynomial order trend (R2=0.9949). The N increases linearly (R2 = 0.9404) by increasing the FLRT but the N was affected by the CLTP with 2nd polynomial order trend (R2 = 0.9769). The As was found to increase slightly with FLRT (R2 = 0.1288), while the As was affected by the CT with 2nd polynomial order trend (R2 = 0.9778). These results are in a good agreement with previous SSP studies.

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