CHROMtalks - Essentials of LC Troubleshooting - Some Problems Just Never Go Away

The sophistication and reliability of instrumentation for liquid chromatography has improved dramatically over the past few decades and continue to improve today. However, even with the best available instrumentation we continue to see some of the same old problems appearing now that we have seen for decades. In other words, some problems just never go away. In December of 2021 I started an “Essentials of LC Troubleshooting” article series for LCGC that discusses many of these persistent problems. In this presentation I will touch on the highlights of this series, including: 1) best practices for effective troubleshooting; 2) pressure problems; 3) peak shape and width problems; and 4) baseline problems. For each topic I will discuss fundamental principles that underpin our troubleshooting approach and use experimental data to illustrate the problems and solutions where possible.