Chromatography Forum

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.