Laboratory-grade GC instrumentation is costly, resource-intensive, and often large and stationary. Recent efforts have been made to construct portable gas chromatography instruments that possess higher practical value (e.g., lower cost and ease of use) while maintaining analytical benefits (low detection limits and high precision and accuracy). We report the development of a method to quantitate ethanol in commercially available liquor beverages using an internal standard and a Vernier Go Direct Mini GC (“mini-GC”): a low-cost, portable gas chromatograph equipped with a chemiresistance detector. We compared the analytical figures of merit (e.g., accuracy, precision, etc.) for this method against a standard benchtop GC-FID (Agilent 7890). The mini-GC method was optimized for ethanol detection with 1-hexanol as an internal standard, and GC-FID used 1-propanol as an internal standard. A limited data set (n=3 on GC-FID and n=1 on mini-GC) shows that the GC-FID outperformed the mini-GC in terms of accuracy and precision. However, a systematic error in the mini-GC results was observed. Studies are currently underway to increase the number of replicates and improve data processing to optimize the mini-GC method to properly determine its analytical capabilities.

Development of a portable GC method for ethanol determination in liquor

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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