Zebra GC: A fully integrated micro gas chromatography system

This paper reports the development of a fully controllable micro gas chromatography (μGC) system. The system, named Zebra GC, uses a microfabricated preconcentrator (μPC) for sample collection, a microfabricated separation column with an on-chip thermal conductivity detector (μSC-TCD) for analyte separation and detection, a flow controller unit, flow and thermal management units, and user interface unit. The system has an internal flow manipulation scheme which yields sharp analyte injection from μPC to μSC-TCD with widths as narrow as 0.36 s and significantly suppresses flow variations observed by the μTCD resulting in the generation of stable chromatograms. All microfabricated components have their own on-chip heaters and sensors enabling low-power high-speed temperature control during desorption and separation phases. The performance of this ready-to-deploy Zebra GC system has been demonstrated through the analysis of a gas mixture containing aromatic volatile organic compounds (VOCs).