Determination of respiratory gases (CO2, O2, Ar and N2) with gas solid chromatography

A method was developed for gas chromatographic separation of respiratory gases (CO2, O2, Ar and N2). Oxygen was catalystically reduced to H2O by palladium, with H2 as carrier gas. CO2 and H2O were separated on a Porapack Q column and detected separately. After absorption of CO2 and H2O, Ar and N2 were separated by a molecular sieve column and recorded by the reference cell. Comparison with the Scholander technique gave the correlation coefficient 0.997 for CO2 and 0.992 for O2 respectively. All values were close to the line of identity. We found it necessary to calibrate with a known gas mixture before each set of analyses for accurate determinations.