By: Jay A Brown, General Manager
OV-1, the phase that started it all!
The year was 1967, gasoline was .32 cents a gallon, Johnson was in the White House, Batman made its debut on TV and OV-1 was introduced to the GC community!
While gas chromatography was still in it’s infancy, and so was this author, the founders of Ohio Valley, who were chromatographers and silicone chemists, were searching for reliable consistent GC phases to use themselves. While attending Pittcon in 1966, they discovered they were not alone in this search. Chromatographers were using anything they could find that might offer some separation capabilities. They came up with OV-1 and Ohio Valley Specialty Co. was born.
OV-1 is a 100% dimethyl silicone. It quickly became the workhorse of the GC industry. The OV-1 being non-polar and low bleed with a rather high temperature limit was able to cross over to many different applications. The US pharmacopeia quickly recommended this type of phase as G2 (OV-1 dimethyl siloxane gum).
- Dimethylsilicone gum
- Recommended solvents for OV-1: toluene, dichloromethane, pentane
- Viscosity: Gum
- Specific gravity 25̊/25̊C: 0.980
- RI, 25̊C: 1.4040
- Average molecular weight: >106
- Maximum operating temperature: 350̊C
- McReynold’s Constants:
- Benzene: 16
- Butanol: 55
- 2-Pentanone: 44
- Nitropropane: 65
- Pyridine: 42
- 2-Methyl-2-pentanol: 32
- 2-Octyne: 232
OV-1 Structure
