High Purity Carbon Adsorbents for Sample Preparation and Chromatographic Applications

The diversification of chromatographic applications across industries has increased demand for flexible, reliable, and high performance carbon adsorbents. Supelco^® Analytical Products has a 40+ year history of innovation in carbon adsorbent research and product development starting first with high purity Supelco^® carbon adsorbents for gas chromatographic packed columns followed by specialty carbons developed for thermal desorption tubes and then carbons used in solid phase extraction (SPE) cartridges. In response to later analytical application demands, Supelco^® carbons were created to make porous layer open tubular (PLOT) columns as well as solid phase microextraction SPME fibers. Most recently, Supelco® carbon technologies include nanocarbons for electronic applications.

Currently, 75 carbon intermediates in four molecular families are utilised combined or stand-alone in different analytical devices. These include Carboxen^® and Carbosieve^® amorphous carbon molecular sieves, Carbopack™ and nanocarbon graphitised carbon blacks, and Graphsphere^® graphitised polymer carbons. These carbons are highly customisable, high capacity, synthetic, and reusable which differentiates them from activated charcoal. Standard uses include:

• Collection media in air sampling devices
• Packings in SPE hardware, purge traps, and GC columns
• Purification of gas or liquid streams
• Recovery of synthesized compounds from reaction mixtures
• And many more exciting applications

If you are interested in a new adsorbent and know the target physical specifications (surface area, porosity, pore diameter, particle size range, etc.), please contact our Supelco^® R&D (Bellefonte, USA) through SigmaAldrich.com/technicalservice to determine whether an existing adsorbent is appropriate or if a new adsorbent should be developed.

For a comprehensive discussion on carbon properties, and specific adsorbent application details in gas chromatography and sample preparation read the full article here.