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Published May 7, 2019 | public
Journal Article

A high-speed, high-performance, microfabricated comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatograph

Abstract

A small, consumable-free, low-power, ultra-high-speed comprehensive GC×GC system consisting of microfabricated columns, nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) cantilever resonators for detection, and a valve-based stop-flow modulator is demonstrated. The separation of a highly polar 29-component mixture covering a boiling point range of 46 to 253 °C on a pair of microfabricated columns using a Staiger valve manifold in less than 7 seconds, and just over 4 seconds after the ensemble holdup time is demonstrated with a downstream FID. The analysis time of the second dimension was 160 ms, and peak widths in the second dimension range from 10–60 ms. A peak capacity of just over 300 was calculated for a separation of just over 6 s. Data from a continuous operation testing over 40 days and 20 000 runs of the GC×GC columns with the NEMS resonators using a 4-component test set is presented. The GC×GC-NEMS resonator system generated second-dimension peak widths as narrow as 8 ms with no discernable peak distortion due to under-sampling from the detector.

Additional Information

© The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019. Received 9th January 2019, Accepted 18th March 2019. First published on 18th March 2019. This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Microsystems Technology Office (DARPA MTO) under Micro Gas Analyzers Program contract number 017040518. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. This paper describes objective technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the paper do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. The authors gratefully acknowledge consultations with Professor Richard Sacks at the University of Michigan, who inspired this avenue of research; and the assistance of Atilla Kiss and Akos Sule at Neptune Research. A part of this paper was supported by Sandia National Laboratories' Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project # 199974. Author contributions: Formal analysis: J. W., E. M., J. R.; methodology: J. W., J. R., R. S.; writing-original draft: J. W., R. S.; writing-review and editing: H. M., K. A.; investigation: J. W., E. M., C. F.; data curation: J. W., E. M., J. R.; conceptualization: J. W., R. S., E. M., M. R.; resources: R. M., M. M., J. A., C. W., A. S., D. P., D. G., D. W.; software: S. H., E. M. There are no conflicts to declare.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 20, 2023