Heated transfer line
AssigneeThermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH
InventorsAntonella Guzzonato, Heinz Mehlmann, Hans-Juergen Schlueter
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A flexible, foldable light-weight gas chromatography transfer line suitable for connecting a gas chromatograph (GC) to a spectrometer, such as a mass spectrometer or optical spectrometer, in particular to the ion source of the spectrometer, such as an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) ion source. The transfer line has a heating arrangement that allows maintaining an even temperature profile, which improves quality of spectra. The transfer line has low thermal mass and the heating can be controlled with the control unit of the GC.
Claims9
A gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) system, comprising
- at least one gas chromatograph;
- at least one flexible transfer line comprising:
- a flexible transfer capillary;
- and
- a flexible resistive heater, surrounding the transfer capillary, the resistive heater being connectable to a power supply for providing current to the resistive heater to heat the resistive heater and thereby heat the flexible transfer capillary, the resistive heater is divided into at least one central zone and at least one exit zone, the resistive heater is adapted to provide different heat emission per unit length in said at least one central zone than in said exit zone,
- wherein the flexible gas chromatography transfer line is foldable, a displacement force in each direction (x, y, z) needed to move the transfer line exit end when an entry end is fixed being less than 10 N;
- and
- at least one mass spectrometer;
- wherein the transfer line entry end is fluidly connected to the gas chromatograph, and the exit end is fluidly connected to the mass spectrometer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.