Agilent Technologies 8890 User manual

Agilent 8890 Gas Chromatograph
Operation Manual

Operation Manual
Notices
© Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2019
No part of this manual may be reproduced in
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Manual Part Number
G3540-90014
Edition
First edition, January 2019
Printed in USA or China
Agilent Technologies, Inc.
2850 Centerville Road 
Wilmington, DE 19808-1610 USA
Agilent Technologies, Inc.
412 Ying Lun Road
Waigoaqiao Freed Trade Zone 
Shanghai 200131 P.R.China
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Safety Notices
CAUTION
A CAUTION notice denotes a
hazard. It calls attention to an
operating procedure, practice, or
the like that, if not correctly
performed or adhered to, could
result in damage to the product or
loss of important data. Do not
proceed beyond a CAUTION notice
until the indicated conditions are
fully understood and met.
WARNING
A WARNING notice denotes a
hazard. It calls attention to an
operating procedure, practice, or
the like that, if not correctly
performed or adhered to, could
result in personal injury or death.
Do not proceed beyond a WARNING
notice until the indicated conditions
are fully understood and met.


Operation Manual 3
Contents
1GettingStarted
The 8890 Gas Chromatograph 12
Before Operating Your GC 13
Chromatography Using a GC 14
Inlets 15
Automatic injectors 15
Automatic sampling valves 15
GC Columns and Oven 16
Detectors 17
Touchscreen 18
System Operation 20
Touchscreen 20
Browser Interface 21
Data System 21
Browser Interface 23
Status Indicator 27
GC Status 28
Alert tones 28
Error conditions 28
Clearing a shutdown condition 28
Overview of Running a Sample 29
Instrument Control 30
Correcting Problems 31
2 Help and Information
Where to Find Information 34
Help from the Touchscreen 35
Touchscreen Help 36
Help from a Browser 39
Context-Sensitive Help 43
Agilent GC and GC/MS User Manuals & Tools DVD 45


4Operation Manual
3 Startup and Shutdown
To Start Up the GC 48
To Shut Down the GC for Less Than a Week 49
To Shut Down the GC for More Than a Week 50
4 Touchscreen Operation
Navigation 52
Run controls 53
Status/control tray 54
Entering Data 55
Home View 56
Flow path page 57
Status page 58
Plot page 59
Methods View 61
Diagnostics View 62
Maintenance View 63
Logs View 64
Settings View 65
Help Menu 66
Touchscreen Functionality When the GC Is Controlled by an Agilent Data System 67
5Methods
What is a Method? 70
What Is Saved in a Method? 71
What Happens When You Load a Method? 72
Editing the Active Method 73
To edit the active method 73
GC hardware changes 73
Create a Method 74
Load a Method 75
Running Methods 76
Pre Run and Prep Run 76
Manually prepare for the run 76
To manually inject a sample with a syringe and start a run 76


Operation Manual 5
To run a method to process a single ALS sample 77
To abort a method 77
Events 78
Using run time events 78
Programming run time events 79
The run table 79
Editing events in the run table 79
Deleting run time events 79
Inlets 80
Carrier gas flow rates 80
About gas saver 81
To set the PTV or COC coolant parameters 82
To set MMI coolant parameters 82
About Oven Temperature Programming 84
Oven ramp rates 84
Oven cryogenic cooling parameters 85
Columns 87
Nickel Catalyst Tube 88
About the nickel catalyst tube 88
Detectors 89
FID 89
FPD+ 90
NPD 91
TCD 93
ECD 94
Valves 96
The valve box 96
Valve control 96
Valve types 98
Controlling a valve 98
GC Output Signals 102
Analog signals 102
Digital signals 104
Column compensation 107
Test plot 108
6 Sequences
What is a Sequence? 110


6Operation Manual
Recoverable Errors 111
7 Diagnostics
About Diagnostics 114
The system health report 114
Automated testing 115
Self-guided diagnostics 115
Using the Diagnostics View 117
Performing Diagnostic Tests 118
8 Maintenance
Early Maintenance Feedback (EMF) 122
Counter types 122
Thresholds 123
Default Thresholds 123
Perform Maintenance 124
Available Counters 125
Viewing Maintenance Counters 128
To Enable, Reset, or Change a Limit for an EMF Counter 129
EMF Counters for Autosamplers 130
Counters for 7693A and 7650 ALS with EMF-enabled firmware 130
Counters for ALS with earlier firmware 130
EMF Counters for MS Instruments 131
9Logs
Logs View 134
Maintenance logs 135
Run log 135
System log 135
10 Settings
About Settings 138
Service Mode 139
About 141
Calibration 142
Maintaining EPC calibration—inlets, detectors, PCM, PSD, and AUX 143
To zero a specific flow or pressure sensor 144


Operation Manual 7
System Settings 145
Configuring the IP address for the GC 146
To set system date and time 147
To change the system locale 148
To set system power saving features 149
To access stored run data 150
To control Browser Interface access 150
To change the Remote Advisor settings 151
To change the miscellaneous settings 154
To run the system setup routine 155
Tools 156
Performing a column compensation run 157
Power 158
11 Configuration
About Configuration 160
Configuration Changes 161
Configure a new device 161
Configure an existing device 161
Valve Configuration 163
To configure valves 163
Inlet Configuration 165
Columns 167
To configure a single column 168
To configure a packed column 169
To configure a composite column 169
Additional notes on column configuration 171
To configure multiple columns 171
Inlets and outlets 172
A simple example 172
Slightly more complex example 173
Oven 174
To configure the oven 174
Detector Configuration 176
Analog Output Settings 177
MSD Configuration 178
System-level communications 178
MSD configuration 178


8Operation Manual
GC/MS systems 179
To enable or disable MS communications 181
To use the GC when the MS is shut down 181
Headspace Sampler 182
Headspace sampler configuration 182
System-Level communications 182
To enable or disable HS communications 183
Miscellaneous Settings 184
Readiness 185
Valve Box 186
PCMs 187
Aux EPCs 188
12 Resource Conservation
Resource Conservation 190
Sleep methods 191
Wake and condition methods 192
To Set the GC to Conserve Resources 194
13 Programming
Clock Time Programming 198
Using clock time events 198
Adding events to the clock table 198
Deleting clock time events 198
14 Flow and Pressure Modules
About Flow and Pressure Control 200
Maximum Operating Pressure 201
Auxiliary Pressure Controllers 202
Restrictors 203
Example: Using the PCM Channels 205
PIDs 206
15 Inlets
Inlet Overview 208
About the Split/Splitless Inlet 209
Selecting the correct S/SL inlet liner 209


Operation Manual 9
About the Multimode Inlet 211
MMI split mode minimum operating pressures 211
Selecting the correct MMI liner 212
About the Purged Packed Column Inlet 214
About the Cool On-Column Inlet 215
Setup modes of the COC inlet 215
Retention gaps 215
About the PTV Inlet 216
PTV sampling heads 216
About the Volatiles Interface 217
VI operating modes 217
About the VI split mode 218
About the VI splitless mode 220
About the VI direct mode 223
Preparing the Interface for Direct Sample Introduction 226
VI direct mode setpoint dependencies 228
VI direct mode initial values 228
Direct mode parameters 228
16 Columns and Oven
About the Oven Insert 232
Hydrogen Sensor 233
Instrument logs 233
Calibration 233
Status information 233
Operation with an Agilent data system 233
17 Chromatographic Checkout
About Chromatographic Checkout 236
To Prepare for Chromatographic Checkout 237
To Check FID Performance 239
To Check TCD Performance 244
To Check NPD Performance 248
To Check ECD Performance 252
To Check FPD+ Performance (Sample 5188-5953) 256
Preparation 256
Phosphorus performance 256
Sulfur performance 260


10 Operation Manual
To Check FPD+ Performance (Sample 5188-5245, Japan) 262
Preparation 262
Phosphorus performance 262
Sulfur performance 266
18 Chinese Metrology Testing
FPD+ and ECD Unit Conversion Factors 270
Conversion factors for the FPD+ 270
Conversion factor for the ECD 270
Using the Conversion Factors 272
References 273
19 Glossary