Scent of the afterlife? Scientists recreate recipe for Egyptian mummification balm - Enlarge / One of the limestone canopic jars that once held mummified or... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1965458 #egyptianmummification #forensicarchaeology #gaschromatography #ancientperfumes #ancientegypt #archaeology #chemistry #perfumes #science

Teasing out the secret recipes for mummification in ancient Egypt - Enlarge / Illustration of an embalming scene in an underground chamber.... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1913572 #gaschromatography #massspectrometry #egyptianmummies #gaming&culture #mummification #ancientegypt #archaeology #egyptology #science

Time to figure out how this this shimadzu GC-14A gas chromatograph works.

Except for the keypad the unit seems in pretty good physical condition, and the damage to the keypad seems to be superficial only so that's good.

Turning on the power switch the unit springs to live. The large fan circulating chamber air is definitely louder than expected but is tolerable with the door shut.

With the heaters turned on the unit quickly stabilises to a chamber temp of around 25C (7C above ambient) and holds it. This is good as I don't want to heat the column too much, as it is likely filled with air and might be damaged if heated without purging first, but shows that at least the heating section is fully functional.

The control unit also seems to operate as expected, with the VFD seven segment display still being nice and bright and seemingly all buttons working and it displaying chamber temperature. It will take a few more hours with the manual tho until I can actually understand how to operate it.

This unit was bought untested for little money, so that is fantastic news, I was half expecting to find a dead lump of metal.

Here are some initial pictures:

#analyticalChemistry #chemistry #gasChromatography #shimadzu

Why is Helium such a popular carrier gas in GC? From what I read hydrogen is better in almost every way, and if you are using an FID you need it anyways.

#chemistry #gasChromatography

So, my "new" GC/MS shipped and I'll be able to do Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) analysis at home now.

I have it fully licensed and a Developer API license to the Rutgers GC/MS composition analysis database, but analyzing and correlating datapoints might demand even more of my time than 3D printing, cleaning, post-processing, and calibration.

#GCMS #GasChromatography #MassSpectrometry