Hoe werkt de iGC-SEA?
The iGC-SEA is based on Inverse Gas Chromatography (IGC) methodology. And is a gas phase technique for characterising surface and bulk properties of solid materials. The principles of IGC are very simple, being the reverse of a conventional gas chromatographic (GC) experiment. A column is packed with your solid material of interest, typically a powder, fibre or film. A pulse of gas is injected down the column at a fixed carrier gas flow rate, and the time taken for the pulse to elute down the column is measured. A series with different gas phase molecules then allows access to a wide range of phyisco-chemical properties of the actual sample.
The injected gas molecules passing over the material adsorb on the surface with a partition coefficient KS:
Ks = Vn / Ws
Where VN is the volume of carrier gas required to elute the injection through the column, and WS is the mass of the sample. Vn is a measure of how strongly the probe gas interacts with the solid sample and is the fundamental data obtained from an IGC experiment.
