capillary solvent flushing

[thohry]

In the Agilent catalog, there is a kit used to flush capillary columns. Anyone ever uses that and does it increase an old column performance?

Thanks

[Peter Apps]

I've had modest success with column flushing. It can only solve problems connected to the accumualtion of non-volatile, soluble muck in the column. NB to flush from the detector end. Some ingenuity, a pressure regulator controlling clean nitrogen, and a septum-capped vial will save you some money compared to the commercial versions.

Peter

[Consumer Products Guy]

I've used similar, has helped with sample-contaminated columns, will not help for heat or oxygen-abused columns. I state that it helped, but not as good as a new column.

[thohry]

Thanks for your inputs.
Anyway, I wonder if we can use any solvents to flush or just some for certain types of columns?

[Consumer Products Guy]

I've used dichloromethane. I seem to remember methanol being a "no-no". And only bonded columns can be rinsed (I've done DB-1 and DB-5 types), and I have no idea about more-polar bonded phases.

[Bigbear]

I too have had some success doing this. I built my own out of a 43 ml VOA vial and some swage loc fittings.
Depending on what the column is used for will determine the level of success. I have only flushed columns used for P&T VOA's.