Agilent 6500 Series Q-TOF LC/MS Maintenance Guide 49
Maintenance 2
Electrospray Ion Source
Electrospray Ion Source
This section describes the removal, disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly of
the API-interface and the assemblies that make up the source.
To flush the nebulizer
When required Daily or at the end of each shift (or more often) to flush traces of samples and
buffers out of the tubing, valves and nebulizer.
Tools required • Acetonitrile, HPLC-grade or better
• Water, HPLC-grade or better
Parts required None
1 Make sure acetonitrile and water are two of the solvents installed in your
liquid chromatograph.
2 Set the liquid chromatograph to pump a mixture of 90% acetonitrile and
10% water at 2 ml/minute.
3 Pump this mixture through the nebulizer for 3 minutes.
This procedure applies to both electrospray and APCI nebulizer.
This is a good general-purpose flushing mixture but you may need to adjust it based on the
solvents, samples and buffers you are using. For example, a mixture of 50% acetonitrile and
50% water works well for removing salts.