Determination of respiratory gases (CO₂, O₂, Ar and N₂) with gas solid chromatography

Abstract

A method was developed for gas chromatographic separation of respiratory gases (CO₂, O₂, Ar and N₂). Oxygen was catalystically reduced to H₂O by palladium, with H₂ as carrier gas. CO₂ and H₂O were separated on a Porapack Q column and detected separately. After absorption of CO₂ and H₂O, Ar and N₂ were separated by a molecular sieve column and recorded by the reference cell. Comparison with the Scholander technique gave the correlation coefficient 0.997 for CO₂ and 0.992 for O₂ respectively. All values were close to the line of identity. We found it necessary to calibrate with a known gas mixture before each set of analyses for accurate determinations.

Key Words:

• Gas chromatography
• O₂-Ar-separation
• O₂-H₂O-linearity
• palladium catalyser
• Porapack Q column