This technical article discusses the best way to wash an ion-pairing reagent from a column.
When we consider any treatment of an HPLC column, we should consider the words of the Hippocratic oath administered to new physicians, 'to abstain from doing harm.' Although most silica-based columns used for reversed-phase and ion-pair chromatography are quite durable, there are a few things that we want to avoid. One of these is precipitation of any mobile phase components inside the column. Ion-pairing HPLC, as you know, uses an ion-pairing reagent as a mobile-phase additive to enable the system to work as a mixed-mode separation – part reversed-phase and part ion exchange. Many of these ion-pairing reagents, for example, the sulfonic acids, are not particularly soluble in organic solvents. This is especially true for acetonitrile (ACN), and one reason that methanol (MeOH) often is the preferred solvent for ion-pairing methods. So we need to be careful when selecting conditions for washing a column that contains ion-pairing reagents.
By reading the full article, you will discover the best way to wash a column containing an ion-pairing reagent.
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