An improved configuration of a moving wire transport detector

An improved design of the transport detector is described that uses a pre-oxidized titanium ribbon as the transport medium. The titanium ribbon has a high loading capacity that permits a large proportion of the total column eluent to be taken into the sensing system. The solute is sensed by pyrolysis and the subsequent detection of pyrolysis products by a miniature argon detector. The pyrolyzer and sensor system is designed to ensure that all the pyrolysis products enter the detector with minimum dilution and band dispersion. As a result, the sensitivity of the detector (or minimum detectable concentration) has been reduced by approximately two orders of magnitude compared with the original design. The sensitivity of the system described to sucrose is 8 x 10(-8) g/mL, which is similar to the sensitivity of the fixed-wavelength UV detector to benzene (approximately 5 x 10(-8) g/mL). It would appear that the new design has potentially a sensitivity at least an order of magnitude lower than that reported here.