Hyper-fast GC–FID for High-throughput Determination of Total Petroleum HydrocarbonsNew Organic Monitoring Techniques
Oral Presentation
Presented by C. Widdowson
Prepared by L. McGregor1, L. Mikaliunaite1, K. Murtada2, M. Edwards2, J. Grandy2
1 - SepSolve, 4 Swan Court, Peterborough, Other, PE78GX, United Kingdom
2 - SepSolve, 1060 Guelph Street, Kitchener, Ontario, N2B 2E3, Canada
Contact Information: [email protected]; 01733669222
ABSTRACT
Accurate quantification of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in soil and water matrices is critical for environmental risk assessment, site investigation, and remediation monitoring. Gas chromatography with flame ionisation detection (GC–FID) remains the primary analytical approach, typically based on integration of the unresolved complex mixture (UCM) across a defined carbon number range.
While robust, these methods limit throughput for laboratories processing large sample volumes. Fast GC approaches, which use shorter columns and accelerated temperature programs, can reduce run times to under 10 min. However, conventional GCs often struggle to maintain stable ultra-fast heating ramps without sacrificing separation efficiency or increasing energy consumption.
In this work, a hyper-fast GC–FID approach is evaluated for rapid TPH analysis utilising flow-field thermal gradient (FF–TG) technology to achieve high-resolution separations within seconds. FF–TG–GC employs a resistively-heated steel capillary with integrated liquid cooling, for hyper-fast temperature programming with minimal energy consumption. Unlike conventional fast GC, which can suffer from diffusion-driven peak broadening, FF–TG–GC maintains a continuous thermal gradient – keeping the inlet end of the column hotter than the detector end – which enhances resolution by slowing the peak front relative to the tail, producing sharp, Gaussian peaks throughout the run.
Analytical performance, including repeatability, linearity, and carryover, is assessed to demonstrate both the quantitative reliability and the operational advantages of this approach for high-throughput environmental screening.
