The Importance of Online Degassing
Degassing removes dissolved gas therefore avoiding bubble formation. This technique is very important when doing HPLC, FPLC, UHPLC and GPC. Online degassing can replace helium sparging and improves quantitative analysis. Degassing is essential because outgassing and bubble formation creates problems for HPLC, FPLC, UHPLC and GPC systems.
The term “outgassing” is used to describe dissolved gas coming out of a solution. Bubble formation can be created where rough surfaces provide nucleation sites. Bubbles caught in the detector flow cell send spurious signals to the detector.
Chromatography systems that use low pressure mixing are more prone to bubble formation. When the solvents or buffers used for the mobile phase are mixed before the pump, outgassing is likely to occur.
The effect of outgassing in the proportioning valve and before the pump adversely affects gradient formation. This is because the valves are proportioning based on time and cannot discern whether they are pumping air bubbles or liquid.
High pressure mixing systems are less prone to outgassing issues. This is because with high pressure mixing, the mixing takes place after the pumps and is done under high pressure. Therefore, degassing is less likely to occur.
Low pressure mixing is more prone to outgassing because the mixing takes place in the proportioning valve before the pump and the lack of high pressure creates an environment for outgassing.
Bubbles in a flow cell caused by outgassing causes false peaks.
In FPLC, outgassing can create bubbles which disrupts the column bed, destroying the FPLC column
Outgassing which creates bubble formation, can create many performance issues in both high pressure and low-pressure mixing systems
Icon Scientific’s online degassers use proprietary technology. Rather than using industry standard Teflon tubing, we utilize a dual sided, flat membrane cassette which provides maximum surface area and minimal dead volume. The efficiency is optimized by precisely controlling the membrane thickness to maximize the gassing. Our membrane degassers offer efficient and continuous gas removal at all of the specified flow rates. Icon’s unique technology enhances the lifetime of our degassers. Our innovative approach is a dramatic improvement over traditional Teflon coil tubing degassers that are the standard technology today.
Lower internal volumes
Higher surface area
Better efficiency
2-8 channel modules
Analytical to semi prep
HPLC, FPLC, UHPLC, GPC
OEM configurations are available
Outgassing occurs when gasses that have dissolved into the solvent or buffer cause bubbles in pumps and detectors. Therefore, good chromatographic separations require degassing the solvents or buffers.
While the solvent flows through the Teflon AF® membrane, the dissolved gases are removed from the solvent by means of a vacuum on the other side of the membrane. Typically 50% of dissolved gas must be removed from the solvent stream to avoid bubble formation. Online degassers are used at universities, research institutions, and laboratories in the following areas: biochemistry analysis, chemical analysis, pharmaceutical analysis, food and beverage analysis, environmental analysis, chiral analysis and protein purifications.
Our degassers are engineered for superior performance and the highest degassing efficiency in the industry. We use Teflon AF® in all of our analytical and semi-prep degassers. The benefit of online degassing is that it is a continuous process as opposed to helium sparging which is typically done prior to the chromatographic run. After the solvents are helium sparged, gases are reintroduced into the solvent providing inconsistent degassing which degrades over time.
Why Is it Important to Eliminate Bubbles Through Online Degassing?
Bubbles in the flow cell cause erroneous spikes in your chromatograms
Bubbles in solvents cause inaccurate and irreproducible gradient information
Bubbles in solvent steam create inaccurate flow rates causing changes in chromatographic retention times
Bubbles cause noisy baselines
When Dissolved gas forms bubbles they affect the accuracy, precision and performance of your chromatography system.
If gas dissolves in liquid it is likely to cause disturbances in fluidic systems. Gas molecules can form bubbles when pressure or temperature changes. Using our degassers optimizes the performance of HPLC, uHPLC and FPLC systems.
Degassers are the solution to air bubbles in the fluidic lines which cause problems and lead to production disruptions or delays.
Degassers improve reliability because they remove dissolved gases from fluids prior to outgassing. This prevents bubbles from forming and causing problems.
Benefits of Using Online Degassing
improves baseline stability
efficiently removes dissolved gases from fluid stream
prevents bubbles from forming
reduces noise
reduces start-up times
ensures more constant and accurate results
Degassers for HPLC Systems
Analytical degassers are degassers used for this degassing solvent in HPLC and uHPLC systems.
Our Analytical Degassers Include:
AZE 03-1- 4 channel degasser biocompatible
AZE 02-AZURA DG 2.1S- 2 channel degasser
A 5335- analytical 2 channel degasser for GPC
Semi-prep degassers are designed to handle flow rates up to 30 mls/min
Our Knauer semi-prep/degasser is an analytical 2 channel degasser for GPC. The model number is Smartline A 5328.
Preparative degasser- preparative degassers are used for higher flow pumping systems or chromatography systems that can handle flow rates up to 200 mls/min.
Preparative degassers options are:
AZE 03 – Preparative 4 channel degasser
AZE 02-1 Preparative 2 channel degasser
ICON’s online degassers are frequently interfaced to pumps used for HPLC. HPLC and FPLC systems often use online degassers. Online degassers are used as the front end of a low pressure mixing system minimizing outgassing thereby reducing chromatographic issues.
ICON Scientific, Inc
