Dear Colleagues,

apart from technical progress, that will hopefully help us
to save or recycle He in the future, it would also be of
interest what can be done now, to cope with the situation.
Not long ago we ran into problems to purchase He of
sufficient purity to maintain our routine work. I talked to
several vendors then, and all of them told me, that not the
availability of He itself represented the problem, but
rather the required purity.

So, does anybody know a way to purify technical He to
qualities of 5.0 or 6.0 at the laboratory scale? For the
time being this would at least help lowering the costs.  
We're using SUPELCO purifiers in front of each machine
anyway, but I don't think these devices are able to
sufficiently purify, say He 4.0 or 4.5.

BTW, has anybody considered to return to good old hydrogen 
for the "ordinary" GC work?

Best ...

-- 
	Uli Flenker

	Institute of Biochemistry
	German Sport University Cologne
	Carl-Diem-Weg 6
	50933 Cologne

	+49(0)221/4982-5060