Zebron Gas Chromatography Columns

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Ensure accurate and reproducible results in your GC analyses

Phenomenex Zebron GC columns portfolio covers a wide range of applications. From the simplest to the most challenging method, our GC column technology allows us to deliver high performance and faster analysis with optimal resolution and separation of the most complex matrices. Every GC stationary phase comes in different sizes, so you can find the perfect match for your target analytes.

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Select a Phase to view products:

Application Specific

ZB-1XT SimDist

ZB-1701P

ZB-BAC-1

ZB-BAC-2

ZB-Bioethanol

ZB-CLPesticides-1

ZB-CLPesticides-2

ZB-DHA-PONA

ZB-Dioxin

ZB-Drug-1

ZB-FAME

ZB-MultiResidue-1

ZB-MultiResidue-2

ZB-PAH-CT

ZB-PAH-EU

ZB-SemiVolatiles

High Temperature

Z-Guard Hi-Temp

ZB-1HT

ZB-5HT

ZB-35HT

ZB-XLB-HT

Improved Performance

ZB-1plus

ZB-5MSplus

ZB-5plus

ZB-624plus

ZB-WAXplus

Standard

Z-Guard Hi-Temp

ZB-1

ZB-1MS

ZB-5

ZB-5MS

ZB-35

ZB-50

ZB-624

ZB-1701

ZB-FFAP

ZB-WAX

ZB-XLB

Zebron Z-Guard

No Separation Mode

No Phase

Zebron Z-Guard

Overview

Explore Zebron GC Columns by Application Type

Phenomenex offers a full range of Zebron™ GC columns engineered for precision, performance, and reliability across diverse analytical workflows. Whether you're targeting specific analytes, operating at high temperatures, or seeking enhanced sensitivity and low bleed, Zebron™ has a column designed to meet your needs.

Properties of Zebron GC Columns

Explore our wide range of GC capillary columns and application-specific proprietary phases for environmental, food and cannabis, forensics, pharma, fuels, and specialty chemicals analyses.

  • Low bleed
  • Excellent retention
  • High sensitivity
  • Extended lifetime

What Makes Zebron GC Columns Unique and Why Choose Them?

Zebron columns are purpose-built to make your gas chromatography column work exactly the way you need it to have stable baselines, sharp peaks, and confident quantitation across the full lifecycle of your method. Every column begins with highly inert deactivated fused silica, then is strengthened with ESC™ bonding and low-bleed PLUS stationary phase technology.

The result is a GC solution that reduces active-site interactions and delivers the consistency essential for demanding GC and GC-MS workflows. Whether you’re screening unknowns or validating a regulated method, Zebron GC columns provide the selectivity, reproducibility, and rugged performance needed to move your analysis forward.

When to Select Each Phase

Choosing the right phase helps streamline method development and ensures dependable separations. The Zebron family spans non-polar to highly polar chemistries each available in multiple dimensions so you can tailor resolution, speed, and sensitivity.

Use this quick guide to match your compounds to the most suitable phase:These options make it easy to align your gas chromatography columns with specific analyte classes VOCs, alcohols, aromatics, solvents, isomers, FAMEs, and more while maintaining the resolution and robustness your workflow requires.

Phase Name

Polarity

Recommended Detector

Temperature Limit

ZB-1 / ZB-1MSplusNon-polarFID, MS~370 °C
ZB-5plus / ZB-5MSplusLow-polarFID, ECD, MS~350 °C
ZB-50Mid-polarFID, MS~340 °C
ZB-624plusMid-polarFID, MS~320 °C
ZB-WAXplusHighly polarFID~260 °C
ZB-FFAPHighly polarFID~260 °C
ZB-FAME / ZB-BAC / ZB-Drug / App-specific phasesVariousMS, FIDVarious

Key Applications of Zebron GC Column

Zebron columns support a broad range of industries and analytical challenges. Their low bleed, stabilized selectivity, and reproducible inertness make them a reliable choice wherever high-quality GC data is essential.

Environmental

Ideal for VOCs, SVOCs, and mineral oil analysis especially when ultra-clean baselines and stable responses are critical.

Food & Beverage

Zebron phases deliver outstanding resolution for flavors, fragrances, pesticides, FAMEs, and fatty acids, helping labs confidently characterize complex matrices.

Pharmaceutical & Toxicology

For residual solvents, monographs and drugs-of-abuse screening, Zebron GC and GC-MS phases offer precise quantitation and robust long-term stability.

Specialty Chemicals & Cannabis

High-temperature tolerance and strong inertness support terpene profiling, additive analysis, and challenging specialty chemical workflows. Across these applications, Zebron helps analysts produce consistent, actionable data even under demanding thermal and sample-load conditions.

Installation and Maintenance Tips for Zebron GC Columns

A few simple practices can significantly extend the life of your GC columns and protect data quality:

Install with care: Cut the column properly, use correct ferrules, proper insertion depth, and avoid overtightening to maintain inlet and detector integrity.

Condition before use: Stabilize the stationary phase under carrier gas flow to achieve lower bleed and more consistent baselines.

Maintain the inlet: Replace septa, liners, and seals routinely to minimize active sites and contamination.

Protect the system: Gas filters, moisture traps, guard columns and liners help prevent contaminants damage and increase column lifetime.

Operate responsibly: Use controlled temperature ramps, periodic bake-outs, and occasional trimming to keep performance consistent run after run.

These steps help keep your Zebron column operating at its optimal level, reducing downtime, troubleshooting, and repeated injections

Protect Your GC. Improve Lab Efficiency.

  • Replace/upgrade your current GC column. Get accurate and reproducible results.

  • Explore remarkably inert GC inlet liners for superior sample protection.

  • Prevent GC system costly repairs with Zebron gas filters, traps, and accessories

FAQs

What makes Zebron low bleed?
Zebron PLUS phase coatings and advanced ESC™ bonding create a thermally stable film that minimizes bleed, even during high-temperature GC-MS analysis.

Can I use Zebron columns with GC-MS?
Absolutely. ZB-5MSplus, ZB-624plus, and other MS-optimized phases offer ultra-low bleed and high inertness for sensitive mass-spectrometry workflows.

What’s the difference between ZB-5plus and ZB-5MSplus?
Both share a 5% phenyl phase and increased inertness, but ZB-5MSplus is an arylenic phase engineered for mass spectrometry, delivering lower bleed and improved trace-level accuracy. ZB-5plus is non-arylenic, designed for general GC use with higher thermal stability (up to 370 °C vs. 350 °C for ZB-5MSplus) and good inertness.

How do I choose between ZB-624plus and ZB-WAXplus for residual solvents?
Use ZB-624plus for USP/EP/JP compliance and broad residual solvent screening, and ZB-WAXplus when your matrix is water-rich or dominated by highly polar solvents.

Phases

No Separation Mode

No Phase

Recommended Use

High Temperature

Z-Guard Hi-Temp

Z-Guard Hi-Temp

Guardian columns have the 2 m, 5 m or 10 m guard built directly into the analytical column in one continuous length of tubing.Guardian system provides the same inert column protection, but eliminates the possibility of leaks

Recommended Use

As temperature increases (oven ramp program), the sample is vaporized and moves unretained through the Guardian section of the column. Non-volatile contaminants are deposited on the Guardian section, better preserving the stationary phase and making it easier to trim contaminants off the front of the column.

Standard

Z-Guard Hi-Temp

Recommended Use

Standard

ZB-1

ZB-1

Low polarity for a wide range of applications

Recommended Use

Excellent resolving power of critical pairs in complex petrochemical samples and used for “fingerprinting” and routine quality control analyses

Standard

ZB-1701

ZB-1701

Alternate selectivity to phenyl phases, with similar polarity

Recommended Use

Alcohols, Amines, Drugs, Esters, PAHs, PCBs, Pharmaceutical Intermediates, Phenols, Solvents, Steroids, TMS Sugars, Tranquilizers

Application Specific

ZB-1701P

ZB-1701P

Specially designed for improved DDT and endrin response

Recommended Use

Guaranteed for pesticide analysis and certified for EPA Method 8081

High Temperature

ZB-1HT

ZB-1HT

100% dimethylpolysiloxane with high temperature stability up to 430 °C for non-polar compounds

Recommended Use

Rugged, high-temperature stability (up to 430 °C) for non-polar compounds for high boilers, contaminants, carry-overs, and high-temp bakeouts

Standard

ZB-1MS

Recommended Use

Improved Performance

ZB-1plus

ZB-1plus

Low bleed phase for non-polar compounds

Recommended Use

Especially suited to high sensitivity GC-MS and extremely inert for active compounds

Application Specific

ZB-1XT SimDist

ZB-1XT SimDist

Glass Infusion™ metal column technology for efficient, reproducible separations and high temperature simulated distillation

Recommended Use

ASTM Methods (D2887, D2887X, D3710, D6352, D7169), Crude Oil, Gasoline Fractions, Petroleum Distillates, Petroleum Fractions, Simulated Distillation, Vacuum Distillates

Standard

ZB-35

ZB-35

Intermediate polarity for high molecular weight samples and method development screening

Recommended Use

Intermediate polarity for high molecular weight analysis and excellent for trace analysis with bleed-sensitive detectors (MS, FID, ECD, NPD)

High Temperature

ZB-35HT

ZB-35HT

Intermediate polarity column with high temperature stability up to 400 °C

Recommended Use

Intermediate polarity with high temperature stability (up to 400 °C) for high boilers, contaminants, carry-overs, and high-temp bakeouts

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FAQs

Since you may not know beforehand which samples have high solvent levels, we recommend having a second GC instrument with an FID detector to screen incoming samples prior to GC-MS analysis to identify “hot” samples. This allows you to adjust the split ratio for the quantitative analysis and avoid detector saturation. This is particularly important when dealing with samples of unfamiliar origin.
For residual solvents you definitely need to use GC-MS for accurate analysis. And, if you have the budget, you should go with GC-Triple Quad MS. In residual solvent analysis you have a lot of analytes with similar structures and the potential for a lot of matric interference, so MS is crucial for identifying the right compound. With GCFID you only have your reference standard, and you can’t authenticate or confirm a sample result. Even with MS, residual solvent analysis in cannabis at low levels of detection is very challenging and you need all the instrumentation power you can get.
Different diluents require different equilibrium temperatures and equilibrium times, but the transfer line temperature will be the same. If you are using water, you should limit the equilibrium temperature to 80°C and allow 45-60 minutes for complete equilibration of high boiling analytes, but keep the transfer line at 175°C to ensure complete transfer. For higher boiling diluents like DMAC or DMSO you can use a higher equilibrium temperature but shorter time. For all three diluents, however, a transfer line temperature of 175°C works well.
Peak fronting can occur when one or more of the compounds injected on the column exceeds the capacity of the liquid phase of the column. The thinner the liquid-phase film, the less of each compound can be retained by the column. To prevent fronting, reduce the injection volume, increase the split ratio, or inject a less concentrated sample.
The residual solvent analytes will indeed all elute within the 180 to 200°C window. However, the higher temperature runup is needed because the matrix is “sticky” with terpenes and other semi-volatile and non-volatile compounds. These can cause contaminant carryover effects in subsequent analyses, especially with MS detectors. To eliminate the carryover problem, we recommend taking the final temperature of the column and transfer line to 300°C, rather than 240°C. The high temperature stability of ZB-624plus allows this more aggressive instrument “bakeout”.
First, you need to choose a column that has a very thick stationary phase, such as a 0.25mm ZB-624plus™ column with a 1.4 micron film thickness. Then you need to increase your split ratio, so you don’t send too much analyte onto the column. Also, start the run at a lower temperature, like 30 or 35°C, to provide enough focusing time for on-column separation. Finally, for the low boiling analytes, you should back off a bit on the flow rate.
For residual solvent analysis you don’t need a liner with glass wool because with headspace sample introduction, any material that reaches the injection port has already been vaporized (unlike in pesticide analysis). However, with residual solvent headspace analysis the liner geometry is very important. You need to use a small internal diameter liner (1-2mm) to focus the analytes and introduce a sharp, narrow band onto the column.
Most 624-type GC columns have sufficient column selectivity to separate both residual solvents and terpenes. Therefore, you can run both methods on the same column on the same instrument (in two separate injections, of course). However, it is important to thoroughly bake out the column at the end of each run and here the high temperature stability of the ZB-624plus column is an essential characteristic. Finally, while it is possible to analyze both residual solvents and terpenes on the same instrument and column, high-volume laboratories find it more productive and economical to dedicate separate instruments to the two analytical methods.
Bleed is the loss of stationary phase. The column stationary phase is a long polymer chain of repeating groups. These polymers are also bonded to other polymer chains, this is called cross-linking, which helps to stabilize the phase and reduce the amount of bleed. At the end of the chain, there is typically a more reactive group like an alcohol (PEG) or silanol (siloxane based phase). This more reactive group can react with a previous link in the chain causing a section of the polymer chain to be removed and elute as bleed. As you increase the temperature, the rate of this reaction increases, resulting in increased bleed, which is why the baseline rises as the column temperature increases. Other things can also cause this reaction in the stationary phase. Very reactive groups like acids, bases, and oxygen can break apart these polymer chains and cause bleed. If reactive chemicals are injected, they will condense onto the phase of the column for long periods of time and have more time to cause damage while they are condensed. This is another reason why trimming the column may help restore chromatographic performance, as this removes the damaged portion of the column in addition to any contamination. Note that bleed will occur over the entire length of the column and this results in a rise in baseline. If any peaks are observed, even if the ions are consistent with bleed, they are most likely coming from one specific source and being separated by the column. That is, these are likely impurities being “injected” onto the column resulting in peaks, and these are not column bleed.
There are several potential causes. Low-level carryover contamination can arise from either (or both) the headspace transfer lines or the mass spec transfer line. Therefore, maintaining these lines at high temperature is important. Also, what appears to be carryover may be laboratory background contamination from other operations. As will be discussed in a later section, the solution is to isolate the GC-MS as much as possible from all background sources.
Thinner films provide higher resolution and fast analysis, but have limited sample capacity. Thicker films have higher sample capacity, but lower resolution and are typically used for very volatile analytes.
Solvent rinsing can be used when the column has become contaminated by dirty samples. It’s typically most effective when analyzing compounds that are inert or provide good peak shape on new columns. The procedure is usually pretty simple – after removing the column from the GC, a couple of column volumes of solvent is forced into the column using an inert gas like N2 or He. The solvents are pushed from the back of the column (detector side) to the front (injector side) so that contaminants are not pushed farther onto the column. If you use multiple solvents, ensure that there are no miscibility problems with the solvent used from the previous step. You also have to be careful when rinsing thicker film columns – highly non-polar solvents like Methylene Chloride, Ethyl Acetate, or Hexane can cause the polymer to swell and block the flow through the column. Typical procedures involve using a series of solvents – Methanol, Water, IPA, and finally Hexane. You can also use a mixture of solvents together to remove multiple analytes at one time. After the column has been rinsed, it must be dried for 4-6 hours by passing the inert gas through the column. When solvent rinsing is completed, make sure to do a slow conditioning ramp when the column is re-installed in the GC to remove any remaining solvent. If chromatography still looks bad, then contamination may be severe enough to replace the column. For some, the time involved in rinsing a column outweighs the expense of a new column and it is therefore easier to simply replace the column.