Microbore HPLC

[LCMSstudent]

I am in the learning phase of ‘Separations’. I am trying to determine organoarsenic and their transformation products using LCMS. I have difficulty in the HPLC part of this experiment. I tried anion-, cation-, and combination of both exchange columns using various mobile phases (read from literature), but remain unsuccessful. I come across this article using Microbore HPLC with a C-18 column. Our facility does not have a Microbore HPLC (neither a Microbore column nor a suitable HPLC setup). My question is can I use a regular C-18 column on a regular HPLC setup to try their interesting protocol.

[tom jupille]

The problem is that the mass spec is not a happy camper with a high flow of solvent. There are two basic approaches to limiting the flow of liquid into the MS:
- use a narrow-bore or microbore systems (other things being equal, flow is scaled to the square of the column diameter)
- use a splitter to divert only a part of the flow from the column into the MS.