Issue 21, 2019

Zero electrical power pump for portable high-performance liquid chromatography

Abstract

A major trend in analytical chemistry is the miniaturization of laboratory instrumentation. We report a pump requiring no power to operate based on the controlled expansion of a pre-pressurised gas for use in portable applications of high-performance liquid chromatography. The performance of the gas pump is characterised and integrated into a compact liquid chromatography system capable of isocratic separations integrating an LED-based UV-absorption detector. The system weighed 6.7 kg when the mobile phase reservoir was fully charged with 150 mL solvent and included an on-board computer to control the system and analyse data. We characterise the flow-rate through chromatography columns with a variety of geometries and packing materials for a range of pressures up to 150 bar. The maximum variation in flow rate was measured to be 6.5 nL min−1, limited by the resolution of the flow detector. All tests were made on battery power and results are a mixture of those made in the laboratory and in the field. Additionally, we performed a series of 1 m drop tests on the device and show the system's high tolerance to mechanical shocks during operation in the field.

Graphical abstract: Zero electrical power pump for portable high-performance liquid chromatography

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 Jul 2019
Accepted
24 Aug 2019
First published
01 Okt 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Analyst, 2019,144, 6207-6213

Zero electrical power pump for portable high-performance liquid chromatography

S. Chatzimichail, D. Casey and A. Salehi-Reyhani, Analyst, 2019, 144, 6207 DOI: 10.1039/C9AN01302D

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