Services

The laboratory supports two instrumental chromatography techniques:

• Gas Chromatography (GC) where the stationary phase is typically a highly viscous liquid such as polysiloxane or polyethylene glycol and the mobile phase is a highly purified gas such as H2, N2 or He.

• High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) where the stationary phase is usually some sort of solid such as silica, perhaps bound to carbon chains or some other functionality, and the mobile phase is some sort of solvent mixture, depending on the application

Instrumentation
The chromatography laboratory has a suite of modern GC and HPLC instruments.

Five of the GC instruments are equipped with versatile flame ionisation detectors, allowing analysis of a wide range of volatile compounds. A further two are coupled to mass spectrometers (MS), which enables identification of volatile organic compounds.

The four HPLC’s are equipped with UV-vis absorbance detectors which can detect almost any soluble compound – provided it is active in the UV-vis range. One instrument can also be coupled to an Evaporative Light Scattering detector, which can be considered a universal detector and can detect most compounds that UV-vis fails to see. Elsewhere in the Faculty there is a suite of HPLC-MS instruments for which access can be arranged.

There is also access to a Countercurrent Chromatograph (CCC) - this is a liquid-liquid chromatography method utilising an orbital centrifuge to enable sample component separation.

Costs

All GC’s and HPLC’s are available for use to all parts of the University and external clients with prior arrangement. There is, however, a cost associated with running the instruments please use the contact below for price information

Contact

Dr. Daniel J. Driscoll MRSC

Chemical Sciences Division,

Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences,

University of Surrey,

Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK.

Tel. 01483 689907