For over 30 years, the QUADREX CORPORATION
has invested a wealth of scientific expertise
into the manufacturing of its' line of GC
capillary columns.
The vision that started 32 years ago has
even deeper
roots deep in the very early days of gas
chromatography. Quadrex Corporation was founded
in 1976 by Prof. S.R. Lipsky, then the head of
the Department of Physical Sciences at Yale
University (New Haven, CT).
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EARLY BACKGROUND - One of the early pioneers of
high resolution gas chromatography, Dr. Lipsky
was researching the field of lipids at Yale in
the late 1950’s when he decided to try a new and
intriguing technique called gas chromatography
(GC) which had been recently developed by Dr.
Archer J.P. Martin and Dr. A.T. James. Dr.
Lipsky’s curiosity with this new technique led
to the first successful analyses of fatty acids
by gas chromatography (Figure 1) 1,
demonstrating the capability of gas
chromatography in the analyses of biochemical
substances.
His attention was quickly drawn away from the
research of lipids to further the developing
field of gas chromatography, which continued
throughout his 30-plus year career, yielding
several patents and over 100 technical papers. |
Dr. Lipsky (right) and his colleague, Maurice
Godet,
prepare a strip chart recorder for an early gas
chromatograph
- not a small device back in the late 1950's!. |
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Figure 1 - One of the
first FAMEs chromatograms from 1959.
The total run time is 7 hours! |
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In 1960,
together with Dr. Jim Lovelock, he invented one of the
primary detectors used in environmental detection today,
the electron capture detector (ECD) 2 . With
his Yale colleague, Dr. Csaba Horvath, the technique of
HPLC was developed. Dr. Lipsky pioneered the use of a GC
in combination with a mass spectrometer, now commonly
known as GC-MS.
Other
early work included consulting projects with the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA on their early
lunar (Surveyor) missions, which sought to find the
composition of the lunar surface. In 1960, he received a
substantial grant from NASA to develop a "highly
specialized, ultra-sensitive, miniature gas
chromatograph" for this purpose. |
Dr. Lipsky (center) holds a
lunar GC component in 1962.
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The
resulting instrument at right measured only 8" x 8" x 8"
and weighed only 11 pounds. He also proposed the use of
the little-known technique of GC-MS for the analysis of
Martian soils and was appointed Lead Experimenter for
NASA’s Mariner program. Dr. Lipsky continued to work
with NASA through the 1970's, and received lunar
material brought back by the Apollo astronauts for GC-MS
analysis. |
Lunar Gas Chromatograph
designed in 1962. |
GC COLUMN DEVELOPMENT -
The expiration of the Perkin Elmer (Golay) patent on
capillary columns in 1975 opened the GC market to a new
generation of column manufacturers. Along with others at
the time, Dr. Lipsky recognized the need for
commercially available reproducible columns, and thus
Quadrex was born. At the time, state-of-the-art column
manufacturing focused on what was known as soft glass
(borosilicate) columns. While providing leaps in
performance over packed columns, these fragile columns
were no match for the fused silica columns of today.
| The 1979 landmark
paper by Ray Dandeneau of Hewlett-Packard announced the
development of fused silica columns to the world. Taking
this lead, Dr. Lipsky sought out suppliers of the new
flexible fused silica tubing material and found a local
fused silica tubing source (coated with an outer layer
of polyacrylate) in Massachusetts. As a result, Quadrex
became the first column manufacturer to actually produce
commercially available fused silica columns (known then
as the ‘Black Knights) which was introduced at the
Fifteenth International Symposium, Advances in
Chromatography, in Houston, TX in 1980. |
 1980
Quadrex Black
Knight fused silica column logo |
By 1982, Quadrex
fully made the switch from the 'Black Knights' to the
now industry recognized standard polyimide-coated fused
silica tubing for its column material.
Dr. Lipsky’s other developments in the 1980’s include
advancing bonded stationary phase technology, surface
deactivations, and the development and introduction of
aluminum-clad fused silica columns for high temperature
applications in 1986. In 1982, for his contributions to the
field of Gas Chromatography, Dr. Lipsky was the
recipient of the Tswett Medal for Distinguished Work in
Chromatography.
After the initial diagnosis in 1979, Dr. Lipsky passed away in 1986 after a seven year
battle with Leukemia. |
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Today,
under second generation management,
Quadrex remains in the forefront of gas
chromatography with many technical
advancements. The Quadrex Corporation
product line has grown to include a wide
range of fused silica capillary columns,
including specially developed columns
for environmental and petrochemical
applications.
In 1991,
we initiated the development of a fully
automated column coating system which
resulted in a device we call the
‘Workstation’. Our Workstations allow
for faster column production speeds not
normally attained with standard coating
technologies.
Furthermore, we found that the
Workstation technology enabled us to
expand the range of film thicknesses we
could coat onto the fused silica tubing.
This ultimately led to our introduction
of the line of PHAT PhaseTM
thick film capillary columns in 1995.
These PHAT PhaseTM columns
offer unprecedented films of up to 18
microns on 0.53mm I.D. columns for low
molecular weight analyses.
Utilizing this same coating technology
on narrow-bore (0.10 and 0.18mm I.D.)
columns, we now offer a line of
PHAST GCTM
columns, with standard and
thick films, which maintain a balance
between sample capacity levels and speed
of analysis.
Quadrex,
in a joint effort with the Zoex
Corporation (Lincoln, NE) developed the
first device to simplify capillary
column installation. The Capillary
Column Quick-Connect was introduced at
the 1992 Pittsburgh Conference. The Quick-Connect fitting
eased the column installation burden,
also saving time and materials.
Our close work with Zoex also pioneered early
GC x GC instrumentation and column
development.
Quadrex
has established strategic partnerships
with other manufacturers for the supply
of related products, such as Ultra-ALLOYTM
Stainless Steel Columns from Frontier
Labs (Japan), full-featured portable GCs
from SRI Instruments, gas generator
systems from Peak Scientific (U.K.) ,
and a complete line of GC consumables.
With these relationships, we can offer
you, the discerning chromatographer,
complete GC systems, from consumables to
GC instrumentation.
1.
S.R. Lipsky, R.A. Landowne, and J.E.
Lovelok, Analytical Chemistry,
Vol. 31, No. 5, pg. 853 (May 1959)
2. J.E. Lovelock and S.R. Lipsky, J.
Am. Chem. Soc. 81, 431-433
(1960)
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