An apparatus for manufacturing flexible fused silica columns for gas liquid chromatography. Part I. The drawing process

Summary

A compact description is given of a simple and reliable method of drawing flexible fused silica capillary for gas chromatography. Some emphasis is given to the fact that the practices of drawing optical fibres should not be followed too slavishly so this leads to unnecessarily complicated and expensive equipment. Satisfactory capillary column silica tubing can be made with straightfoward extension of the method developed earlier for drawing thick walled capillary. A simple glass/silica hydrogen oxygen diffusion flame bumer is described for fusing the preform tubing at the draw point which is enclosed by a water cooled glass enclosure to trap evaporated silica and maintain the operation under dust free conditions. The uniformity of the capillary diameter is better than 5% which is adequate for most gas chromatographic purposes. The second part of the paper yet to be published will cover the methods developed for coating the capillary both internally and externally.