Prepare The Pump - Agilent Technologies InfinityLab LC Series User Manual

3 Using the Module
Best Practices

Prepare the pump

The Agilent 1290 Infinity and 1290 Infinity II Pumps are equipped with automatic
purge valves. This enables a variety of additional functions not available in
Agilent Pumps with manual purge valves. It is possible to prepare the pump (set
paramaters and start the functions Purge, Condition, or Prime) with the software.
Purge
Use the Purge function to:
•
•
As soon as the purge procedure ends the module automatically switches to
analytical conditions again.
Condition
If micro air bubbles persist in the pump head, the overall pump performance may
be compromised and flow accuracy / precision may be negatively affected. This
may be visible as increased pressure and / or detector baseline ripple. A reliable
indicator of such situation is a strongly negative but slowly increasing tuning
signal value (below –1). To remove the air efficiently, the Condition function can
be used. During conditioning, the pump is delivering flow into the system
(column) and the last used method settings, like flow, composition and max
pressure are used. It is not possible to perform sample analysis while
conditioning.
Use a reasonable flow rate (for example 1.5 mL/min), composition setting (for
example A: 50 % B: 50 %) and backpressure (>200 bar) to ensure efficient air
bubble removal from all pump heads.
Condition the pump if you see:
•
•
1260 Infinity II Flexible Pump User Manual
Fill the system with fresh or different solvent.
• Ensure that the new solvent is miscible with the previous solvent.
• Prevent damage to the degasser or pump by using an intermediate step
with a co-miscible solvent, if necessary.
Remove air bubbles in tubes and pump heads.
• After the pump has been idle for a few hours or more (air may have
diffused into the solvent lines).
Excessive pressure ripple.
Excessive composition ripple (baseline noise/mixing noise – noise level
changes with the composition), when you are sure that the solvent type is
correctly set, and there is no evidence of a leak in the pump.
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