A New Carrier Gas Type for Accurate Measurement of N$_{2}$O by GC-ECD

The accurate measurement of concentration is the basis for determining emission sources and sinks of nitrous oxide (N2O). The detection of N2O showed that the presence of carbon dioxide (CO2 biased the N2O response when pure nitrogen (N2) was used as a carrier gas for gas chromatography (GC) equipped with an electron capture detector (GC-ECD). In this study, laboratory experiments were carried out to explore how the presence of CO2 interferes with the accurate determination of N2O. The aims were to address the extent of the influence to try and explain the underlying mechanism, and to uncover technical options for solving the problem. Three GC carrier gases are discussed: pure nitrogen (DN); a mixture of argon and methane (AM); and a high concentration CO2, which was introduced into the ECD cell with a low flow rate based on DN (DN-CO2). The results show that when DN was used, the existence of CO2 in the ECD cell greatly enhanced the response of N2O, which increased with CO2 content and remained constant when the content reached a limit. Comparisons between the three methods show that the DN method is defective for the accurate determination of N2O. The bias is caused by ifferent electron capture mechanisms of CO2 and N2O and depends heavily on the detector temperature. New GC carrier gas types with make-up gases that can remove the CO2-induced influence, such as the DN-CO2 and DN-CH4 methods reported in this paper, are recommended for the accurate measurement of N2O.