Determination of Xenon in Air by a Pulse-discharge Helium Ionization Detector

A pulse-discharge helium ionization detector（Valco, PD-D3-I） was used to measure xenon concentration in air. The dependences of the detector relative response on various gas chromatograph parameters were investigated. Based on the well prepared gas connections for the detector system and optimized gas chromatography（GC） working conditions, the atmospheric xenon concentration could be measured by the cheap GC method with a detection level of 0.7×10-9（parts by volume）. Moreover, the xenon concentration in the ground level air around our laboratory was measured with the result of 0.085×10-6（parts by volume） and RSD of 0.91%.