Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Changing composition of eluent mixture during liquid chromatography

soma - 28-10-2017 at 03:31

I'm looking for information on changing the composition of the eluent mix during a liquid chromatography separation.

My understanding is that you slowly change the ratio of solvents towards the more polar starting after the end of one front?

unionised - 28-10-2017 at 03:49

Does this help?
http://www.chromedia.org/chromedia?waxtrapp=mxrorDsHqnOxmOlI...

soma - 28-10-2017 at 05:08

Thanks.

Metacelsus - 28-10-2017 at 05:23

Note that for a silica column, changing directly from a very nonpolar (example: 2% ethyl acetate in hexanes) to a much more polar eluent (example: 50% ethyl acetate in hexanes) can disrupt the column and cause cracking and uneven flow. I'm not completely sure why this happens, and sometimes I can get away with doing it, but I think it's because heat is released and the temperature increase causes thermal expansion. When I need to change polarity over a large range I try to do it gradually.

[Edited on 10-28-2017 by Metacelsus]