e-Chronicle – Chromatography Updates
e-Chronicle – May 2026 – Your Chromatography Update
Is the Helium Shortage Impacting Your Laboratory Operations?
With rising costs and ongoing supply uncertainty, many laboratories are reassessing their carrier gas strategies.
Hydrogen – particularly when generated on‑site – is increasingly being evaluated as an alternative.
The information below is intended to help you understand the practical, technical, and safety considerations
involved in converting from helium to hydrogen for GC and GC‑MS applications.
CSI is now using the 12 point SIGNIFICANCE mnemonic to assess greener analytical chemistry technology.
Converting from Helium to Hydrogen – The Advantages of On-Site Generation
Switching from helium to hydrogen carrier gas can dramatically reduce operating costs while improving availability and sustainability.
On-site hydrogen generation provides a safer, more reliable alternative to delivered gas.
- Only a small amount of generated gas is present at low pressure.
- Eliminates the possibility of injury or damage from transportation and installation of gas cylinders.
- Generators supply gas continuously with minimal operator attention.
- Annual running costs are typically only a few hundred dollars.
Hydrogen Safety – Real-time Leak Detection
Hydrogen safety is critical, and modern monitoring systems make detecting and responding to leaks fasterand more reliable than ever.
- Detect hydrogen leaks early with real-time monitoring.
- Automatically shut down instruments and gas supplies when a leak is detected.
Converting from Helium to Hydrogen – Making the Most of the Switch
For gas chromatography applications, converting from helium to hydrogen as a carrier gas is often straightforward. Hydrogen allows – and requires – nearly twice the flow rate and linear velocity of helium for optimal efficiency.
In addition to being less expensive and renewable when generated on-site, hydrogen enables laboratories to run roughly twice as many samples in the same amount of time.
ever waste energy (Hydrogen generators eliminate cryogenics and compression needed for helium production
and transport).
avouring reagents obtained from renewable sources.
Can I Use Hydrogen Carrier Gas with GC‑MS Systems?
Hydrogen can be used as a carrier gas with many GC‑MS systems, although method and instrument adjustments
may be required for optimal performance.
- Very narrow bore capillary columns may be required to keep flow rates within vacuum pump limits.
- Some instruments may require changes to sample cones or related components.
- Ion trap mass spectrometers require helium, while quadrupole systems can often use hydrogen.
Predicting Results From Converted Methods
Restek’s Pro EZGC® Chromatogram Modeler allows you to evaluate columns, carrier gases, flow conditions,
and temperature programs before investing in new hardware.
Our Technical Team can help you compare your current method to calculated chromatography results
and then guide you through optimizing separations using hydrogen.
Hydrogen, GC‑MS, and You
Thank you to Restek for the two posts (one by Chas Simons, one by Jaap de Zeeuw) we have combined here.
The information is from an earlier spike in helium prices.
In general, there are no new concerns for using hydrogen with GC-MS, and some issues will have been reduced.
Can Hydrogen Be Used as a Carrier Gas in a GC/MS?
The simple answer is yes; however, there are a few items to consider prior to connecting your instrument to a hydrogen line.
First, consult your instrument manufacturer. Some GC/MS manufactures recommend hardware upgrades, such as magnets, draw out lenses, and/or filaments. Additionally, there are some older model GC/MS instruments that are not capable of supporting hydrogen as a carrier gas. The manufacturer should be able to
help you with your specific model.
After you know that your instrument is capable of using hydrogen, you are ready to plumb the instrument. Start with a source of clean hydrogen. A hydrogen generator is extremely economical and provides an (almost) endless supply of hydrogen, but cylinders will do. Use brand new chromatography quality stainless steel tubing to plumb the gas lines. Hydrogen has a “scrubbing effect” on tubing. If you reuse your old helium tubing, contamination may be an issue as hydrogen washes the crud out of the old lines. Copper tubing exposed to hydrogen can become brittle over time and break, so stainless steel tubing is a safer and more reliable option. As always, make sure you use a leak detector and check all of your connections.
Since the pumping capacity for hydrogen is less than helium, you may need to switch column dimensions when moving to hydrogen. In general, 20 m columns
with a 0.18 mm internal diameter are a good place to start. You will likely need to increase the split flow while decreasing the column flow. Restek’s EZGC suite is
an excellent tool for this (updated from original posting). As a warning, you may experience overloading because these smaller bore columns have less capacity.
The solution is likely to decrease the linear range of your calibration curve or dilute your samples.
Solvent selection can also be important when using hydrogen. Although I have not seen any data, I have heard that methylene chloride and carbon disulfide can form HCl and H2S. Since hydrogen is not inert like helium, it does make sense that acids can form in a hot injection port as solvents vaporize. It doesn’t take much acid to destroy a column.
In addition to the theory of creating acids in the injection port, hydrogen has the potential to hydrogenate some unsaturated compounds. For instance, styrene will convert to ethylbenzene in a hot injection port (250°C). By lowering the injection port temperature, this conversion can be reduced.
The key to successfully convert your GC/MS system from helium to hydrogen is to first do your homework. By far, the tips listed above do not cover everything to consider when switching. I haven’t even touched upon methods that have specific tune criteria which can be problematic when using hydrogen. There is still a great deal to learn/discuss in regards to fragmentation, spectra, sensitivity, etc.
I hope this post helps make your conversion to hydrogen a little easier.
Can I Use Hydrogen as Carrier Gas When Using Mass Spectrometric Detection?
There are several good reasons to use hydrogen as the carrier gas. Besides the lower cost and guaranteed availability, it is one of the easiest ways to reduce analysis time in GC.
The optimum velocity for hydrogen is about 2x higher than helium, meaning that analysis time can be reduced by a factor 2. This is valid for isothermal as well as temperature programmed separations. The only limiting factor is the heat rate of the oven as with a two-fold increase in carrier gas velocity, the temperature program also has to increase a factor 2 to get the same elution temperatures (and comparable chromatography).
A question that comes up often: “Can I use mass spectrometric detection when I operate my GC under hydrogen?”
For ion trap instruments, hydrogen cannot be used as these systems require helium. For the wider used quadrupole instruments, the answer may be different.
We asked the MS specialist of 3 leading instrument companies offering a series of MS detection systems. We were surprised by the difference in answers and how little data actually was available about this.
Company 1: There is absolutely no problem. The only thing what may be seen are M+1 ions. 95% of NIST spectra are okay using hydrogen. If spectra are different one needs to build their own library. That is what many people also do with ion-trap systems that do not have external ionization.
Company 2: Said there were no issues at all. You can use hydrogen without problems. They could not tell me any details.
Company 3: They did not recommend use of hydrogen for normal column dimensions as with a quadrupole MS, the higher H2 flow result in lower sensitivity.
H2 will work okay if flow is 0.3-0.4 mL/min. They recommended to use 0.15/0.18mm columns with a linear velocity of 40cm/s; Also they said that H2 will cause hydrocarbons to be extracted from fitting/tubing etc. and during a week, high hydrocarbon background is seen... after that it’s ok.
We also asked some specialists in the field about hydrogen and MS. One said it’s a big risk when power failure and H2 accumulates in the MS happens,
ending up in a explosion. Hydrogen could also potentially cause activity development in the ion source.
Another user claimed he had difficulty with “tuning” the system. This may be related to high hydrogen flow as was also referred by company 3.
Other parameters to think about is that you need sufficient pump capacity as the flows will be 2x higher; the components will elute 2x faster, so the peaks are
2x narrower and to get sufficient data points, the MS needs sufficient data collection rate.
