LC Tubing—Cutting & Installation
Description
Clean, square tubing cuts are essential for good LC. They can help you avoid leaks and dead volume. A guillotine-style cutter is appropriate for PEEK tubing, while it is typically best to purchase precut lengths of stainless steel tubing as it is especially important to make sure filings and burrs are removed from the inside and outside of the tubing.
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Transcript
Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining us for this Restek Tip. Our topic today is cutting and installing LC tubing. Now, you're probably familiar with the two types of tubing most commonly used for LC plumbing. The first is PEEK tubing. When you're working with this, you always want to cut it with a guillotine-type cutter, not a razor blade and definitely not scissors. The reason for this is that those other cutters will crimp the tubing, restrict the flow of mobile phase, and eventually completely block it. Try to avoid those when you can. For stainless steel tubing, we recommend precut tubing, especially for column connections. When the tubing is seated properly in the bottom of the port, it minimizes leaks and dead spots where samples can accumulate and lead to carryover. And don't forget when you're using PEEK tubing, you always want to use PEEK fittings. Those are finger-tight to about 5,000 psi. For stainless steel tubing, especially on a guard or an analytical column connection, the EXP fitting system is recommended. These are hand tight to 9,000 psi and wrench tight to 20,000. It's really that simple. Good, clean cuts and the proper fitting are going to lead to good column performance. Thanks for joining us. Stay tuned for more tips from your friends at Restek.