Mini GC platform for rapid VOC analysis
An associate professor from Virginia Tech has developed a credit card-sized gas chromatography platform that can analyse volatile organic compounds (VOCs) within seconds. The portability of the device means it can be used in remote locations, such as war zones.
Masoud Agah explained that the research community has typically pursued “the hybrid integrated approach” for the development of micro gas chromatography systems. This approach allows the major components of the system to be miniaturised individually on separately fabricated chips; the components are then manually assembled using commercially available off-chip fluidic interconnects.
However, said Agha, “This hybrid integration method leads to an increase in the fabrication cost since it involves the separate processing of the individual components.” He stated that the manual assembly of the individual components is “a cumbersome job and increases the overall weight and footprint of the micro gas chromatography system”.
According to Agha, further improvement in micro gas chromatography research in terms of size, cost and performance can be achieved by the monolithic integration of micro gas chromatography components. Agha and his graduate students Muhammad Akbar and Hamza Shakeel thus developed a gas chromatography-on-chip module, with the results published in the journal Lab on a Chip.
“Monolithic integration alleviates the need for transfer lines between the column and the detector, which improves the performance of the individual components with overall reduced fabrication and implementation costs,” the authors wrote. “The chip is capable of operating under the isothermal as well as temperature and flow programming conditions to achieve rapid chromatographic analysis.”
Agha added that the chip provided “highly efficient separations and detection, reduced analysis times … [and] fast detection response times suitable for high-speed gas chromatography”. Results were found to be highly repeatable, with less than 10% variations, and no deterioration of the detector excitation electrodes was observed after 12 h of continuous operation.
'Phantom chemical' in drinking water finally identified
Researchers have discovered a previously unknown compound in chloraminated drinking water —...
Flinders facility to use the micro realm to understand the past
AusMAP aims to revolutionise the ways scientists address key questions and grand challenges in...
A new, simpler method for detecting PFAS in water
Researchers demonstrated that their small, inexpensive device is feasible for identifying various...
