Stories & Features
Often, when making connections, people want more information on the amount of “dead volume” in the connection. However, most people who inquire about the dead volume are really wanting to know just how much internal volume exists within a connection, not how much of that internal volume is considered “dead.”
Specifically, three terms describe the internal volume of a product: dead volume, swept volume and void volume.
Mathematically speaking, when dead volume and swept volume are added together, the total equals the overall void volume.
Dead volume, however — particularly in capillary connections — can cause some very undesirable chromatographic effects, including:
If your application is not chromatography-related, dead volume can still lead to problems, including:
In other words, no matter what your analysis technique is, dead volume will likely have a negative impact. Therefore, in addition to keeping the volume inside the connection to a minimum, all dead volume should be removed from the connection.
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