5 Maintenance
Flushing the nebulizer - weekly
Agilent Triple Quadrupole LC/MS System User Guide 96
Flushing the nebulizer - weekly
Passing the vapors of solvents like IPA, methanol, acetonitrile, or water through
the LC/MS system is called steam cleaning and is used to clean possible
contamination in the LC/MS system. The usual conditions are:
• LC pump flow to 0.5 ml/min
• Nebulizer pressure to 60 psi
• Drying gas to 13 L/min
• Drying gas temp to 350 °C
Make sure the MS stream selection valve is set to go to the MS. Steam Cleaning
overnight has been shown to be one of the most important factors in improving
the signal-to-noise level by reducing the contaminations.
To clean an MS, there are two options:
• Plain water/MeOH at high temp – 50:50 proportion
• IPA/MeOH/Water at high temperature
The IPA/MeOH/Water combo can be anything. IPA, maybe 50 (IPA):25:25. IPA
cleans both aqueous and organic.
Schedule
Check the nebulizer weekly. If needed, flush traces of samples and buffers out of
the tubing, valves, and nebulizer.
Equipment List
• LC/MS-grade methanol
• LC/MS-grade water
Steps
1 Install a mix of 30 to 70% methanol in water into a LC solvent bottle.
2 Remove the column from the LC column compartment.
3 Remove nebulizer from spray chamber and support the nebulizer so that it
sprays into an appropriate waste container (beaker, bottle, etc.).
4 Control the LC flow through the acquisition software to pull from the solvent
bottles.
5 Set flow rate to not more than 1 ml per minute.
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