Small Peaks and Poor Separation Using 1260 RID

Help with Agilent RID 1260 using a mixed D column, THF as the eluent, analyzing Polystyrene Standards, concentration 2,6 and 10mg/l with a 200ul injection and 1ml/min flow. Peaks are very small and poor separation. Any suggestions

  • Sounds like GPC to me. This is something, I don't know much about. If you want to check out the RID itself, I'd go for this quick test:

    Flush the sample and reference side of the cell with water. Run STD #3 (15mg/ml) of the Glycerin sample (5064-8220) at a flow rate of
    1.0 ml/min water, a runtime of 5 mins and 20 ul injection volume using a restriction capillary.

    With the same method, but a RT of 2 min and 2ul injection volume, you can inject standard 1 to 5 and check response linearity.

  • Tee, 

    There is no separation at all. The chromatogram looks as though there is no column installed, which suggests the gel bed has been damaged. This can happen if water or other incompatible solvent was pumped into it. Follow Stephans suggestion below to check out the detector, and if its ok try a new column. 

    -Howard 

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