Introduced a new thermal desorption technology, which has the advantages of high sensitivity, high recovery rate, no solvent and low cost.
Thermal desorption (TD) offers significant advantages over solvent extraction, including increased sensitivity, higher sample recovery, and cost savings. However, conventional TD is a one-shot process where the sample is destroyed during analysis. Agilent's SecureTD technology, available on Markes International TD systems like UNITY and ULTRA-UNITY, overcomes this limitation by using split re-collection to capture a portion of the desorbed sample for repeat analysis.
The document details the technical overview of SecureTD, explaining how split flows are directed to charcoal or conditioned sorbent tubes for quantitative trapping. It presents laboratory test results demonstrating the performance of SecureTD with high-loading toluene standards and low-concentration benzene, toluene, and o-xylene solutions. The note also covers method validation for high-boiling compounds and troubleshooting scenarios where repeat analysis helps identify issues such as erroneous GC parameters or sample loading problems.
| Split ratio (Toluene test) | 99:1 |
|---|---|
| Split ratio (BTX test) | 21:1 |
| Split ratio (Amines test) | ~130:1 |
| Tube desorb temperature (Toluene) | 280 °C for 5 min |
| Tube desorb temperature (Amines) | 320 °C for 10 min |
SecureTD overcomes the one-shot limitation of conventional TD by using quantitative re-collection for repeat analysis.
Markes International TD systems, including UNITY (single tube thermal desorber) and ULTRA-UNITY (100-tube automated thermal desorber), support SecureTD.