Selective removal of carbon dioxide contained in the effluent from ion chromatography suppressors using a new non-vacuum device

• A new device to selectively remove CO2 from eluent has been developed.
• The developed device consists of a closed vessel equipped with gas permeable tubing and a CO2 adsorber.
• The developed device has a sufficient capacity for removing CO2 from the eluent under non-vacuum conditions.
• A measurement of anions on the a few ppb levels was achieved.

In this paper, a new CO2 gas removal device optimized to selectively remove CO2 gas contained in the effluent from suppressors used in ion chromatography (IC) under non-vacuum conditions is described. This device consists of a closed vessel equipped with gas permeable tubing (GPT) and a CO2 adsorbent. During operation, the CO2 adsorbent adsorbs CO2 gas in the vessel, creating CO2 partial pressure difference between the inside of the GPT and the vessel. The CO2 gas contained in the effluent being pumped into the GPT is selectively removed from the effluent based on the diffusion of the CO2 associated with the CO2 partial pressure difference. The purpose of this study is to optimize the IC operating conditions with the aim of selectively removing HCO3− (CO32−) contained in the effluent and reducing the electrical conductivity of the effluent under non-vacuum conditions. The electrical conductivity of the effluent and the signal intensity of the water dip is decreased by approximately 25 μS/cm (from 30 to 5 μS/cm) and by approximately twentieth, respectively, using the optimized CO2 remover. In addition, the anion detection limit achieved in IC instruments with a CO2 remover is on the order of a few ppb.