THERMALLY TREATED CHARCOAL - A SUBSTITUTE TO POROUS POLYMER PACKING MATERIAL FOR THE CHROMATOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF PERMANENT GASES

Activated charcoal has been thermally conditioned for the fabrication of gas chromatographic columns for the analysis of permanent gases. Ef fect of experimental parameters such as mobile phase velocity, length of column and sample volume on height equivalent to the theoretical pl ate and number of theoretical plates have been investigated. Efficienc y of such columns has been compared with the column made of commercial ly available porous polymer packing materials. The comparison has been carried out by investigating chromatographic parameters like capacity factor, separation factor and column resolution. The effective use of charcoal column instead of porous polymer column has been proposed in a commercial gas analyzer.