Using Alternative Carrier Gases for US EPA VOC Drinking Water Methods

Limited supplies and the rising cost of helium have spurred the need for analytical methods allowing more economical alternatives. With this in mind, new purge and trap VOC methods are being developed and evaluated using nitrogen purge gas, replacing helium. Building upon this new methodology, replacing the helium carrier gas with hydrogen or nitrogen offers the potential for additional cost savings, eliminating the need for helium altogether. This application note demonstrates the use a Teledyne Tekmar Atomx multimatrix autosampler to examine the suitability of alternative carrier gases for the GC/MS system. Comparisons to previous EPA purge and trap methodology using helium and nitrogen will be made. Calibration data and Method Detection Limits (MDLs) will be presented for all compounds using alternative carrier and purge gases per each method.