Transport systems moving wire

Because little has been said concerning difficulties arising from derivati-zation of samples to render them suitable for GC analysis, replacement of GC by HPLC for non-volatile or thermally labile compounds is a possibility. However, the demands of reproducible solvent removal for a reliable LC-C-IRMS approach are formidable. Caimi and Brenna [685,686] have developed an instrument based on a moving wire transport system. The analytes are deposited on the wire as they elute from the HPLC column and, after solvent drying at 200 °C, are transported into an 800 °C combustion furnace loaded with CuO, where the resulting C02 is picked up by an He carrier stream and swept via a drying trap into the IRMS. 

An alternative to direct liquid introduction is the moving belt, or moving-wire, transport interface. Because all l.c. solvents are evaporated before the sample is transported into the ion source, fewer restrictions are placed on solvent type, flow rates, or buffer composition. This system has been used for analysis of mixtures of pentoses, hexoses, and disaccha-rides. ... 

Maggs [36] developed an electron-capture detector (ECD) which was based 6n the moving wire transport system. This type of detector is now available commercially (Table 3.5). Nota and Palombardi [37] described a system in which the column eluent was continuously nebulized and part of which was directed into the interior of an ECD. 

A modified Pye Unicam moving-wire detector was described by Scott et al. [35] in 1974 to fit the vacuum requirements of a mass spectrometer (Figure 3.3). Part of the colunrn effluent is deposited on to a wire, which transports the liquid along a heating element to evaporate the solvents, and through a series of vacuum locks to the ion source where the analyte is thermally desorbed from the wire prior to the ionization. Ionization is independent of the LC system. Therefore, conventional El and Cl spectra can be obtained [35]. This approach was subsequently adapted in 1976 by MacFadden [36] into the moving-belt interface (Ch.4.4). 

Moving Belt Interface (MBI). The concept of transport systems was first demonstrated by Scott et aL (I) who designed a system using a moving wire to carry the solvent/solute into the MS source via two vacuum locks where the vaporization of the solvent was accomplished. Then vaporization of the remaining solute was carried out by passing a current through the wire. The major drawback of this early prototype to transport systems was that the efficiency of the system was a mere %. 

The transport system for LC detection was developed to render the detector independent of the choice of mobile phase and allow any solvent to be used without compromise. The column eluent flows over the transporter, which may be a moving wire, chain or disc which takes up all, or a portion of the column eluent. The solvent is then evaporated from the transporter, usually by heating, and the solute is left as a coating on the surface. The transporter then carries the solute into a detection area, where it is sensed by suitable means, such as pyrolysis and subsequently detected by passing the pyrolysis products to a flame ionization detector. The transport detectors, by and large, are not very... 

Mass detector. The liquid chromatographer s demand for a universal detector which overcomes some of the problems encountered with the RI detector, (such as poor sensitivity and temperature instability) led to the development about ten years ago of the mass detector described here. The transport detectors of the 1960s detected the solute by means of a flame ionization detector after removal of the solvent from the eluent stream. They were abandoned, owing to lack of sensitivity and mechanical problems associated with the moving belt or wire. The new mass detector is similar in principle, but here the eluent leaves the column and is pumped into a nebulizer, assisted by an air supply. The atomized liquid is passed into a heated evaporation column where all the solutes less volatile than the solvent are carried down the column as a cloud of fine particles. A light source and photomultiplier arranged at the bottom of the column, perpendicular to the flow, detect the cloud of particles. The output from the photomultiplier, which is proportional to the concentration, can be amplified and directed to a recorder or data system. 

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