Can the chromatographic column be washed with pure water? Wh

Washing the chromatographic column with pure water for a short time usually will not cause great damage to the chromatographic column. However, if the column is washed with water for a long time, it may cause the loss of stationary phase and phase collapse. Therefore, if it is unnecessary, please try to avoid washing the column with pure water. It is recommended to add a certain amount of methanol or acetonitrile into the water for washing. Generally, the content of water less than 90% will not cause any damage to the chromatographic column What is the impact.
Cause analysis: first of all, since most chromatographic columns used at present are based on silica gel, the solubility of silica gel in pure water is much higher than that in mobile phase containing certain concentration of organic solvent, so washing with pure water for a long time will lead to the loss of stationary phase and decrease of column efficiency. Secondly, for the conventional C18 column, because the C18 long chain and water are immiscible, the interaction force between C18 long chains is greater than that between C18 and water molecules. Washing with water for a long time makes the C18 long chains close to each other and the water flow scours, resulting in the interconnected C18 The retention of hydrophobic substances decreases when the long chain is lodging on the surface of silica gel matrix, which is called phase collapse. In view of the phenomenon of phase collapse easily occurred when washing with pure water, some manufacturers have introduced pure water column. This pure water column can use pure water as mobile phase without phase collapse, which provides a good choice for the analysis of samples only dissolved in pure water.
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