FAQ

What is thermal desorption?
Thermal desorption (TD) is a sample preparation method for gas chromatography (GC) and/or mass spectroscopy (MS) used for analysis of trace levels of organic compounds (analytes). TD is particularly useful for detection of volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds (VOCs and SVOCs). Typically, sample gas is passed through a column packed with an adsorbent which is heated in the flow of inert gas. This results into the extraction of analytes from the sample which can be rapidly transferred to a detector or analyzer like GC or MS.
What is VOCx?
VOCx is a family of highly pure hydrophobic carbonaceous adsorbent materials. The carbon adsorbent packed in the columns contains zero impurities. VOCx has wide range of analytical applications, including air sampling & monitoring (indoor, outdoor, workplace, automobile interior, etc.), breath analysis, and the analysis of trace constituents in foods, flavors, cosmetics, tobacco, building materials, pharmaceuticals, and consumer products.
What does VOCx family consist of?
VOCx is available as graphitized carbon black (VOCX-GCB series) and carbon molecular sieves (VOCX-CMS series) and offered in a variety of pore sizes (6 to 300 Angstrom), surface area (5 to 2000 m2/g) and particle sizes (20/40, 40/60, 60/80 and 120/400 mesh). VOCx offers adsorbents for chemical and biological defense application as well. This porous, high surface area carbon has improved sorption capacity and selectivity that can be easily used in high humid conditions. VOCx also comes in metal impregnated and metal carbide – porous carbon composite forms for catalytic application. VOCx is also available for purge and trap applications.
How is VOCx different from other sorbents used in thermal desorption?
Our technology enables us to readily manufacture sorbents with your desired characteristics. We can control our carbon’s pore size, surface area, surface chemistry and particle size.
Do you sell VOCx as bulk adsorbent or packed in TD tubes?
VOCx is available in both forms. We offer both glass as well as stainless steel packed TD tubes. The glass tubes are made of high quality borosilicate glass. VOCx is packed and kept in place in these tubes with silanized glass wool on either side. The stainless steel TD tubes are made of passivated stainless steel 316L to ensure that they are clean and free of any contaminants. The sorbent is secured in tubes with stainless steel mesh. We offer both single as well as multi-bed TD tubes. The tubes are inspected to meet highest quality standards. We test the tubes in house for any back pressure drop. The tubes are purged with helium and only the tubes with the back pressure of less than 150 mm Hg (3 psi) at flow rate of 500 ml/min are selected for shipping to our clients. Our tubes come preconditioned and ready to use. The bulk sorbent is available in 1, 5 and 10 gram quantity. Please  email us at sales@carbon.org.ua for larger quantities.
Can you custom make a sorbent for specific application?
While we offer the sorbent materials that are equivalent to available sorbents in the market we do understand the customers need. We regularly produce customized tubes as well as sorbents for the clients for the specific applications. Please see our sorbent selection guide that provides a cross-reference to our equivalents for commonly used carbon sorbents.