Waters HPLC Binary Pump versus Quartenary Pump

Discussions about HPLC, CE, TLC, SFC, and other "liquid phase" separation techniques.

28 posts Page 1 of 2
Dear member,

I consider to buy new waters HPLC. Waters' marketing sales suggest me to buy quartenary pump to get better solvent mixing accuracy. From my knowledge, binary pump will give better solvent mixing accuracy and smaller dwell volume. Do you have any experience with Waters pump? Which pump will give a better result?

Thank you.
Either pump will give you a great result. If you are thinking about buying an Acquity system, the H class (quart) gives better flexability (runs pretty good UPLC and very good HPLC) and allows easier method transfer (HPLC to UPLC) and has better method development capability. The I Class (binary) will give you better UPLC performance due to it's lower dwell volume and very low dispersion charateristics.

If you are talking about just doing more traditional HPLC (not small particle work), you will do better with an alliance system (quart) than the Waters binary, HPLC only, solution which would probably be a 1525 ith a 2707 injector and a detector.

Talk to a sale rep, tell them what you want to do (be honest with them) and they will offer you the best solution for your work.
AA wrote:
Either pump will give you a great result.

Well, Waters employees will always tell you that their instruments are great...
I think your question was more generic. If I may provide you with one of our data sheets, this is quite clearly differentiatingthe advantages and disadvantages of binary and quaternary proportioning. http://www.dionex.com/en-us/webdocs/70732-DS-UltiMate-3000-RSLC-Pumps-14Oct2010-LPN2194-03.pdf
Mixing quality: In fact quarternary pumps (or better low-pressure mixing pumps) provide better mixing.
I have deleted the content of this message as it was not in the proper spirit of the forum. My apolgies to all who read it.

AA
i remember a dionex seminar where they explained who we should decided if we needed a HPG or LPG pump in their UHPLC system
it basically came down to the volume delivered by the pump
in their LPG the piston stroke volume is of 80ul
so for gradients of runs under 2 minutes the baseline noise fluctuation and drift associated to the LPG would be greater then for a HPG pump
an effect of step drifts would also appear for very shallow gradient changes, generally used in peptide maps for example.
for those cases an HPG would render better gradients. everything in between is kind of the same
but a HPG pump costs a lot more, requires a lot more maintenance, you basically have 2 pumps, 4 check valves, double the amount of piston seals.
another down of the HPG is that you need to be smarter with where you put your water in order to wash the buffer line. and you cannot do 3 solvent gradients, but if you get to needing that then i would not like to be in your place. :)
AA wrote:
Well, Dionex emplyees will always tell you that thier instruments are good enough.
Sorry, but this is not a good style. In addition you neither identify as a Waters guy in your post nor in your profile, but do product advertising. You should change this as it is not in line with the forum's guidelines.
Quartenary pump (QSM - H Class) is a low pressure mixing system. Allowed to have four solvents and use any combination of them.
The Binary (BSM) which is on the standard Acquity system can have four solvents but due to a solvent select valve you only have 2 combinations at any one time. Is primarily used for high pressure gradient mixing.
The I class is I believe is for high pressure mixing (BSM rated up to 18000Psi) but is for high end MS applications.

After that you need to define what will be your applicatons and decide on that then pick the system that best suits.
You well have much more flexibility in method development with quaternary pump. Dead volumes are no so different. I would also suggest Agilent instead of Waters. We have 6 Agilents in our lab working like a clock for 15 years. My vote is always for Agilent.
Vlad Orlovsky
HELIX Chromatography
My opinions might be bias, but I have about 1000 examples to support them. Check our website for new science and applications
www.helixchrom.com
The question was to use a binary or a quarternary pump. I most cases HPLC uses only two solvents: water and an organic modifier. But sometimes, three solvents just gives you that extra separating power. I do not know what the price difference between the two is, but I would go for a quarternary pump. One day in the future, you may run into the fact that a third solvent may be required and when you have the binary pump, there is nothing you can do about it.
Regards,
Gilbert Staepels

Ideas mentioned in this note represent my own and not necesseraly those of the company I work for.
gstaepels wrote:
One day in the future, you may run into the fact that a third solvent may be required and when you have the binary pump, there is nothing you can do about it.

why we could not add the third pump in binary system? (maybe we could call it tertiary system :mrgreen: )
it is much easier to deliver solvents from four channels. What you do is the following:

A: acetonitrile
B: water
C: 100 mmol buffer or 1% acid
D: 100 mmol buffer at different pH

This set up will allow you to change all three components (ACN from 0% to 100%) and buffer/acid from 0 mmol (0%) to 100% (1%). This will be helpful in creating single, double and triple gradients and not create numerous "premixed" combination of additives and ACN/water. Flexibility of this system is much better. Once you develop a method you can switch to binary pump.
Vlad Orlovsky
HELIX Chromatography
My opinions might be bias, but I have about 1000 examples to support them. Check our website for new science and applications
www.helixchrom.com
If you're using a system for a lot of method development work, then go for the quarternary. As others have said, having the extra channels allows you a much broader choice of solvents and allows you to vary things like buffer concentrations by mixing different strength buffers online.

However, if you're working in a QC style environment, running lots of short assay methods then I prefer the binary pumps, especially if you're running gradients as a binary pump tends to be much more accurate when proportioning the solvents.
How often do you, realistically, need to pump three or more different solvents at the same time? Vlad's got a point that you can set up an experiment to try in successive runs different pH mixes by mixing two different aqueous lines, at the same time as running a gradient with an organic solvent, but unless you do a lot of this sort of work, a binary pump still has lots to offer in terms of accuracy of gradient. The gradient proportioning valve is always going to be a weak link in a quaternary system. Binaries with solvent-selection on each channel are still versatile.
I've certainly never seen tri-solvent methods which vary the composition of three components throughout a run which would require a quarternary system
In the past few years, during literature searches, I have seen a few tertiary solvent gradient methodologies. These methods were generally trying to separate multiple analytes with differing properties that the tertiary gradient was utilizing in the separation.

PS: I hope that made sense. :)
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