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Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some of the frequently asked questions we've received from you regarding our products.
What is your advice on using mechanical pump filters instead of venting the pump exhaust to the hood or to the outside?
The real issue is how much chemical noise is coming from the pumps. Typically a stainless steel pump is limited to using Acetonitrile, Water, and Formic acid for the chromatography buffers. Switching to methanol or acetic acid greatly increases the noise. You never ever want to use TFA because even 0.05% will cause signal suppression in the MS.
For your vacuum needs, you will probably want to get several "accessories". Probably the most useful is a small wheeled short cart or dolly (sometimes called a castored platform) to put the pumps onto. You really don't want them on the floor and putting them on a dolly means you can easily move them around. This will make changing the pump oil much, much easier. It is impossible to change the oil with them on the floor, so at the very least, leave them on the wood pallets that they are shipped with. Do not put them on the same bench top as the mass spec! The vibrations and other associated mess will wreak havoc on your mass spec.
Since you can't vent to the hood, you will need some kind of oil mist filter. You may also need to add a charcoal filter, how extensively you filter will depend on your OSHA regulations and what you are planning to analyze on your mass spec. My pumps are under a bench top and the pumps generate a lot of heat in the enclosed space. I bought a couple of super cheap clip-on electric fans that I use to circulate the air around the pumps which really helps keep them cool and extends the life of the pump oil. Changing the oil can be a real pain, and technically the waste oil is considered hazardous material (another reason to change it as infrequently as possible).
I would also get a trap to condition the Helium gas that you need for the LCQ. I use an Agilent HMT-200-2. It traps both moisture and hydrocarbons. We had a lot of trouble with moisture and other crap coming from our Helium tanks. I am sure that our gas supplier pumps in dry 99.999% pure Helium into the tanks, but if the tanks were left open in a humid (i.e. on a typical summer day) or otherwise contaminated environment, bad stuff gets into the tank. The trap will take care of this and it really cleaned up our spectra (especially the MS/MS). You probably don't need one for the Nitrogen supply, especially if you are going to be doing nanospray.
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