Hydrogen Method Transfer Overview & Application Examples

This webinar focuses on fast GC workflows and the transition from helium to hydrogen as a carrier gas, emphasizing both the technical approach and the practical benefits for analytical laboratories. Driven by rising helium costs and supply constraints, hydrogen is presented as a viable alternative that can significantly improve efficiency. The webinar explains how hydrogen enables operation across a wider optimal linear velocity range, allowing faster separations without sacrificing chromatographic performance.

A central theme is the method transfer process from helium to hydrogen, which can be systematically implemented using optimization tools and column adjustments. By maintaining theoretical plate height and carefully balancing resolution and speed, laboratories can achieve dramatic reductions in run times—from traditional 30+ minute analyses to under 10 minutes in many cases. Importantly, these gains come with only minimal loss in resolution, and often with maintained or improved robustness. Case examples show that laboratories can increase throughput two to four times, while also reducing energy use and overall cost per sample.

The webinar also demonstrates that analytical performance remains highly comparable when switching to hydrogen, particularly when using time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Mass spectral quality, library matching, sensitivity, and quantification accuracy remain consistent with helium methods, ensuring reliable identification and measurement of compounds. Application examples—including environmental testing, essential oil analysis, and pesticide studies—highlight real-world performance. While speed gains in GCxGC workflows are more limited due to modulation constraints, hydrogen still provides cost and operational benefits. Overall, the webinar shows that hydrogen carrier gas can enhance GC workflows by improving speed, efficiency, and sustainability without compromising analytical quality.

Helium is becoming an increasingly limited natural resource; using Hydrogen to achieve increased chromatographic throughput in GC applications is attractive. Both have advantages and disadvantages. LECO scientists investigated the use of Hydrogen as a carrier gas for GC-TOF-MS analysis.

Nick Jones (LECO) presents the method transfer approaches used, the technological benefits, and application examples in the presentation below.