A 20 µL blank injection on a 30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 µm DB-5 column came back with a peak at RT 11.42 min, area 84 mAU·s, and nobody had injected anything but isopropanol. The sequence had run clean the week before. The difference was a new case of septa, lot 22-C, and a GC inlet that had been sitting at 280 °C for four days. That is the shape of most analytical testing ghost peaks, extractables and contamination problems I get called about: a peak with a retention time that matches nothing o...