Photoionization Detector for Portable Rapid GC

With the development of portable rapid gas chromatography (GC) for environmental monitoring the photoionization detector (PID) has potential application. The frequent calibration required and the relatively large dead volume have limited the use of the PID, however. An improved PID which resolves these problems is proposed in this paper. Compared with a commercial instrument, signal generation, the main aspect of the improved PID, has also been optimized. In the improved PID the sample is directed to flow across the lamp window, rather than toward the lamp, and a new, simple automatic self-cleaning technique, which effectively eliminates contaminants and substantially reduces drift, has also been adopted. Use of new electrodes has effectively reduced the background noise and dead volume of the PID. As a result of this new design the PID should be more compatible with rapid portable GC in environmental monitoring, because of elimination of most of the tedious cleaning and calibration previously necessary.