Using nitrogen as a GC-MS carrier gas: Opportunities to eliminate reliance on helium

During this webinar, an expert panel will discuss the historical events that have resulted in the consolidation of the use of helium as the GC carrier gas of choice, and how those events may no longer apply to modern instrumentation.

The panelists will discuss the benefits of migration to alternative carrier gases, including hydrogen and, more importantly, nitrogen, so that GC and GC-MS laboratories can eliminate their reliance on helium. Due to the cost of helium and increasing supply limitations, this topic is especially relevant, as some have estimated that helium may no longer be available for use in the chromatographic market within a relatively short space of time.

Key learning objectives

• Learn about how the consolidation to helium as the GC carrier gas of choice has come about
• Understand why helium reliance may cause a significant impact on the analytical testing market
• Discover how GC-MS methodologies can be adapted to use nitrogen as a carrier gas, without sacrificing analytical performance
• Understand why hydrogen may not be the best alternative to helium, in terms of GC carrier gas

Who should attend?

• Laboratory analysts
• Laboratory managers
• Laboratory directors

Presenter: Frank Dorman (Dartmouth College and Waters Corp)

Frank Dorman is currently Senior Business Development Manager at Waters, focusing on their global environmental business, and, concurrently, a resident scholar in the Chemistry Department at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. In his role at Waters, Dorman manages the research-focused environmental market, external collaborations, and interfaces with R&D for new product development. Prior to this, he was an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BMB) at Penn State University in University Park, PA. Dorman’s scientific interests are in gas and liquid chromatography and fundamental characterization, instrumentation and column development, and mass spectrometry and atomic spectroscopy applied to trace analysis in complex sample matrices.

Presenter: Jaap de Zeeuw (CreaVisions)

Located in The Netherlands, de Zeeuw has 42 years of experience in GC capillary technology, working for Chrompack, Varian and Restek. He has developed many PLOT columns and the first bonded WAX column. He has published more than 100 articles in the field of GC, related to column technology and applications. He is the originator for applying a new GC technique for fast GC-MS using a high vacuum inside the capillary column, for which several patents were granted. de Zeeuw retired from Restek in 2022 and started a new company called CreaVisions. CreaVisions offers GC-consultation and GC masterclasses, as well as a class for creative problem solutions, which helps participants to learn how to think outside the box to generate unique ideas.

Presenter: Chris English (Restek Corporation)

Chris English has managed a team of chemists in Restek’s Innovations Laboratory since 2004. Before this, he spent seven years as an environmental applications chemist and was critical to the development of Restek’s current line of volatile GC columns. Prior to joining Restek, he operated a variety of gas chromatographic systems, conducting method development and sample analysis for a global laboratory testing network. Chris holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from Saint Michael’s College, USA.

Presenter: Georgina Wynne Hughes (Editorial Team)

Georgina studied at Birmingham University where she gained a BSc in Biomedical Science, and an MSc by Research in Cancer and Genomic Sciences, which focused on defective autophagy in rare neurodegenerative diseases. As a member of the Editorial team, she now plays an integral role in shaping the content on SelectScience.