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Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:49 am
by rjr2259
Hello,
I have injected 0.5M Sodium Laurly sulfate on my HPLC as a mobile phase. How can I clean out the system?

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:51 am
by BostonFSE
isnt that a foaming agent for soaps and shampoo? you made a mobile phase out of that? why?
hot water flush would be my first attempt to remove it.

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 11:57 am
by rjr2259
Thank you for your suggestion,
I have flushed over night with water, will any other solvents aid in SLS removal?

Thank you

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 1:11 pm
by Consumer Products Guy
isnt that a foaming agent for soaps and shampoo? you made a mobile phase out of that? why?
Maybe poster was using as an ion-pairing reagent.

Anyway, I'd do water rinse followed by methanol rinse. The anionic surfactant is soluble in those.

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:49 pm
by DR
isnt that a foaming agent for soaps and shampoo? you made a mobile phase out of that? why?
hot water flush would be my first attempt to remove it.
It also shows up once in a while as a dissolution buffer additive, but never at anything approaching 0.5M - this concentration seems quite high for use in LC... I suspect lots of patience and varying MeOH/Water rinse will (eventually) get it out.

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:53 pm
by rjr2259
I suspected as much, It has been flowing water for about 24 hours straight now. I plan to run it over the weekend as well, probably 5ml/min.

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:09 am
by JMB
Working from memory of 12yrs ago, I would recommend a 50/50 mix of 50 mMolar Ammonium acetate aqueous and MeCN.
Set col temp at 50 C so that you can increase flow rate to about 2 mL/min.
I don’t think that you will be able to pump water at 5 mL/min through a true HPLC column.
Are you using SEC ?

Regards,
JMB

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:33 pm
by rjr2259
Currently I do not have a column on the system, I am just pumping solvent through it. JMB, your suggestion of pumping 50/50 ammonium acetate and ACN, was that used specifically for detergent removal?

Re: Cleaning HPLC, detergent

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 8:54 pm
by JMB
Yes.
It may have been aq. Am Acetate and MeOH
As I say, from memory.
JMB