Thermal Desorption GC Analysis of High Boiling, High Molecular Weight Hydrocarbons

Thermal desorption is a valuable and versatile GC sample introduction technique for a wide variety of solid, liquid, and gaseous samples that are not amenable to direct injection into the GC instrument. Gas-phase samples can be collected and concentrated onto adsorbent tubes from the atmosphere or from the headspace over liquid or solid samples, and volatiles trapped onto the tubes are thermally desorbed and introduced onto the GC column. Direct thermal extraction of volatiles and semivolatiles in solid materials allows simplifi ed trace GC analysis of volatiles and semivolatiles in such samples as polymers, waxes, powders, pharmaceutical formulations, foods, and cosmetics. For liquid samples, the Gerstel Twister stir bar sorptive extraction technique combined with thermal desorption enables trace and ultra-trace GC or GC/MS analysis.