Capping Your LC Solvent Bottles

Description

It can be easy to overlook the importance of caring for your mobile phase when doing liquid chromatography (LC). Using appropriate bottle caps (as opposed to foil or wax films—or nothing!) will help keep solvent and additives in while helping to keep dirt and other contaminants out.

Additional Resources

• What can I use as a cap for my mobile phase bottles?
• What can I use to filter my mobile phase?

Restek Recommended Tools & Parts

• Hub-Cap Tops

Transcript 

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us for today's Restek Tip. Our topic today is mobile phase management.  

Now, when I come into your lab, I don't want to see this sitting up on your bench, and I'm sure your safety person doesn't, either. So, it's very important to keep solvent bottles tightly covered. There's a couple reasons why this is important. The first is, it prevents particulates from falling into the bottle and ultimately clogging up that centered steel or ceramic suction filter that draws solvent into the pump. It also prevents vapors from escaping into your lab, which could be a safety or inhalation hazard. Having a sealed bottle also reduces evaporation of volatile additives that you have in your mobile phase. A lot of you are mass spec users, so a lot of times you're using formic acid or some other things, and having the bottle sealed is going to keep that concentration of additive constant throughout the gradient, which leads to more reliable ionization efficiency and better signal coming from your mass spec. And finally, keeping the bottle tightly covered is a great safety feature, because if that bottle tips over in the reservoir tray, you're going to have a puddle in there, and a mess that's going to fall down into the inside of the instrument, and cause a lot of damage. 

So, you always want to make sure mobile phase bottles are covered, whether you have a one-liter bottle size or a four-liter bottle size, we've got products available that can help you with those needs.  

So, thanks very much for joining us, and remember, cap those bottles.