Certified mobilephase bottles worth it?

Discussions about GC-MS, LC-MS, LC-FTIR, and other "coupled" analytical techniques.

10 posts Page 1 of 1
Hi,
We run very low amounts and sensitive lipid analysis on LC-MSMS. Naturally we get best quality reagents and solvents but how critical are the mobile phase bottles. Waters sell ClassA Borosilicate glass for a very high price and one can get borosilicate glass bottles for 5% of the certified bottles price. I am not sure if these cheaper bottles would release contaminations also after a proper cleaning or not. We just use MeOH/ACN/IPA and 10 mM AmAceteta buffers. 1% Formic acid as the lowest pH we use.

Are certifed bottles worth the cost for sensative mass spec analysis, dont want unexpected adducts to lower sensativity?

What are the quality specifications to look for is it borosilicate class A and ASTM E438 speficiations?
Boroslicate 3.3 standard is also a common specification.

Found this table for different glas specifications, seems Borosilicate 3.3 should be fine for most mobilephase applications.
https://www.dwkltd.com/en/technical/gla ... properties
per_oxid wrote:
Hi,
We run very low amounts and sensitive lipid analysis on LC-MSMS. Naturally we get best quality reagents and solvents but how critical are the mobile phase bottles. Waters sell ClassA Borosilicate glass for a very high price and one can get borosilicate glass bottles for 5% of the certified bottles price. I am not sure if these cheaper bottles would release contaminations also after a proper cleaning or not. We just use MeOH/ACN/IPA and 10 mM AmAceteta buffers. 1% Formic acid as the lowest pH we use.

Are certifed bottles worth the cost for sensative mass spec analysis, dont want unexpected adducts to lower sensativity?

What are the quality specifications to look for is it borosilicate class A and ASTM E438 speficiations?
Boroslicate 3.3 standard is also a common specification.

Found this table for different glas specifications, seems Borosilicate 3.3 should be fine for most mobilephase applications.
https://www.dwkltd.com/en/technical/gla ... properties


We use the standard Duran media bottles at 1L or 2L sizes. Not super cheap but they all came with the instrument when we bought them, old Agilent 1100 systems.

I guess the chance of interference would depend on the test, which we are now doing PFAS and that is a bear to keep out of the system. One method of cleaning I read about a long time ago and I have used it often is to use a muffle furnace and bake the bottles at about 500C for a few hours. It will remove even difficult to remove label residues, sharpie ink and any organic residue from algae or chemical contamination. The bottle is so clean your fingers will stick to the glass. Just be sure to remove any of the plastic rings around the opening and don't use the rubber coated ones :) .
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
James_Ball wrote:
per_oxid wrote:
Hi,
We run very low amounts and sensitive lipid analysis on LC-MSMS. Naturally we get best quality reagents and solvents but how critical are the mobile phase bottles. Waters sell ClassA Borosilicate glass for a very high price and one can get borosilicate glass bottles for 5% of the certified bottles price. I am not sure if these cheaper bottles would release contaminations also after a proper cleaning or not. We just use MeOH/ACN/IPA and 10 mM AmAceteta buffers. 1% Formic acid as the lowest pH we use.

Are certifed bottles worth the cost for sensative mass spec analysis, dont want unexpected adducts to lower sensativity?

What are the quality specifications to look for is it borosilicate class A and ASTM E438 speficiations?
Boroslicate 3.3 standard is also a common specification.

Found this table for different glas specifications, seems Borosilicate 3.3 should be fine for most mobilephase applications.
https://www.dwkltd.com/en/technical/gla ... properties


We use the standard Duran media bottles at 1L or 2L sizes. Not super cheap but they all came with the instrument when we bought them, old Agilent 1100 systems.

I guess the chance of interference would depend on the test, which we are now doing PFAS and that is a bear to keep out of the system. One method of cleaning I read about a long time ago and I have used it often is to use a muffle furnace and bake the bottles at about 500C for a few hours. It will remove even difficult to remove label residues, sharpie ink and any organic residue from algae or chemical contamination. The bottle is so clean your fingers will stick to the glass. Just be sure to remove any of the plastic rings around the opening and don't use the rubber coated ones :) .


We do have a furnace that can do 1000C for burning organics from glassware so this would be an option for me. I use dedicated bottles for mobilephase so usually just flush them with water/acetonitrile/IPA. I found bottles with borosilicate 3.3 glas quality for about half the price of the certified bottles from waters so I will take my chanses with these. My concerne was that lower quality glas could release ions from the glass itsel. The higher grade glass have a higher percentage of SiO2 and likely release less of the glass material, I am not sure but dont want to take any chances. If the glass material itself leach ions such as Na+ then it would be impossible to clean away.
I would think try one and see. Use it with an acidic aqueous mobile phase and see if any Na+ shows up in the background, or if it is higher than a certified bottle. If not then good to go.

Mostly the only time I use the oven to clean is if aqueous mobile phase was left in a bottle, just to be sure to remove any algae that might have grown in it, since detergents will show up as background in LCMS and a simply rinse doesn't always remove any algae that might be there.
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
High quality Schott DURAN® laboratory glass bottles (Type 1 (neutral glass)). 1L HPLC bottles can be purchased inexpensively from many companies, including AGILENT (yes, Agilent. I too was shocked to learn this many years ago!), for under $20 each with a screw cap! No need to purchase re-branded ultra-expensive bottles. These are very high quality and well suited to HPLC analysis.

"Certified" Bottles = poppycock !
Funny - Schott is the one brand I've been told to avoid...
Thanks,
DR
Image
That is silly. Schott DURAN® is well known in Europe. Excellent quality, esp for the price.
I just checked and the bottles shipped with our new Agilent 6495 Jet Stream instrument are Agilent branded Duran bottles. If they gave any interference with most sensitive analyses I would imagine they would avoid that headache right from the start.
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
Borosilicate glass is generally preferred for mobile phase bottles due to its chemical inertness and low potential for leaching contaminants into the solvents. Class A Borosilicate glass is a high-quality option that meets specific standards for accuracy and consistency in volume measurements. only up
Consider the compatibility of your chosen bottles with the solvents and buffers you're using. Methanol (MeOH), acetonitrile (ACN), and isopropanol (IPA) are commonly used LC-MSMS solvents and are generally compatible with high-quality borosilicate glass. fnf
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