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4
Maintenance
Purging Air from the Piston Chambers
Thermo Scientific
Surveyor MS Pump and Surveyor MS Pump Plus Hardware Manual
37
Purging Air from the Piston Chambers
Air trapped in the piston chambers causes an excessive variation in the backpressure.
To purge air out of the piston chambers
1. Turn off the solvent flow from the pump.
2. Open the venting valve by turning the wingnut on the left side of the LDA
counterclockwise (see
).
Figure 28.
Purging air from the piston chambers
3. Insert the 10 mL syringe, which is supplied in the accessory kit, into the tubing attached
to the venting valve, and then pump 100% methanol or 100% acetonitrile through the
LDA at a flow rate of 200
L/min for a period of 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Close the venting valve and return to your initial conditions.
5. Check the pressure variation to determine if performing this procedure remedied the
pressure stability problem.
CAUTION
Opening the venting valve when the pump is in operation can damage the
pressure transducer. Before you open the venting valve, turn off the solvent flow and
wait for the system backpressure to dissipate.
Note
Purging the pump at a low flow rate with 100% organic solvent works much
better than purging the pump at a high flow rate with (partly) aqueous eluents.
Note
All HPLC pumps require proper eluent degassing. The Surveyor MS Pump
Plus has a built-in vacuum degasser. Plumbing the pump to bypass this degasser
introduces a potentially unacceptable level of air into the piston chambers.
Venting valve wingnut