Care and use manual – Waters nanoACQUITY UPLC Columns User Manual
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[ Care and Use ManUal ]
nanoACQUITY UPLC Column Care and Use
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I. PreParIng eluents
Do not filter solvents. Use MS grade solvents directly from the bottle
A solvent: 100% water with 0.1% formic acid
B solvent: 100% acetonitrile or methanol with 0.1% formic acid
Seal wash solvent: water, may contain small amount of
organic (no acid)
Weak needle wash for peptides: 3% acetonitrile with 0.1% formic acid
Note:
Good lab practices: no solvent bottles to go through the dishwasher!
Wear gloves when handling solvent lines and hardware
If system is contaminated with poor quality solvents,
flush with appropriate solvent
Many report successful use of solution containing 25% water,
25% acetonitrile, 25% methanol, 25% IPA and 0.1% formic acid
For PEG contaminated, try IPA
DO NOT USE strong bases, as they can strip fused silica
Where to source solvents:
In North America: Fisher Optima or Burdick & Jackson
In Europe: Biosolve (Netherlands) provide very good solvents.
They offer smaller bottles (0.5 L) as well as "UPLC" grade solvents.
II. PreParIng samPle
Samples for expression analysis must contain tryptic peptides derived
from proteins of interest at suitable concentrations
Samples may contain buffers and residual reagents from approved
digestion procedure
The sample must not contain other reagents, denaturants, detergents,
lipids, and must be free of particulates.
III. PreParIng and ConneCtIng 75, 100 or 
150 µm nanoaCQuIt Y Columns
A: PREPARATION
Carefully remove your column from bag.
The gold ferrule on the inlet of the column is placed snugly on the
tubing at the factory. The ferrule is lightly secured to reduce the risk of 
it being lost as the column is removed from the packaging. The ferrule 
is purposely set high on the tubing but will properly seat itself in the 
correct position upon tightening.
A small piece of Teflon
®
tubing is present on the outlet end of the
column for those who want to connect the device to a UV or PDA 
detector rather than a mass spectrometer.
Note: The column is attached to a transfer tube with the use of a 
zero dead volume union. This is hidden beneath the heat shrink 
tubing. Care must be taken NOT to excerpt force on the ends of the 
nano column (e.g., when removing teflon tubing at column outlet) 
that could cause this joint to separate.
Nano-Tee with magnetic mount
Analytical column
Tubing	to	
MS	source
Trapping	column	
outlet	tubing
Tubing	to		
HTM	valve
Inner compartment (swiveled open)