Bubble Trap Sizing

[gjohnson]

Hello,

Does anyone have any experience with sizing a bubble trap for installation before a liquid chromatography column? I have different columns and flow rates that I'll be looking at so I am more interested in guidelines or a reference rather than the answer for one particular situation. Thanks to anyone that can point me in the right direction!

 

[gjohnson]

For anyone interested, I did find the following information in Millipore publication 43478WA Rev A.

The size of bubble trap fitted to a column should be determined by the flow rate at which the column is to be operated and NOT by the size of the column. The following equation can be used as a guideline to indicate the bubble trap size required:

For flow rate of Q liters/min and a fluid velocity with the bubble trap of v cm/min

Cross sectional area of bubble trap required = Q/v cm2

The rise velocity of bubbles in water is typically 16-30 cm/sec. The optimal fluid velocity (v) should be around 25% of the rise velocity (~230 cm/min).

Example: Based on the above equation, the maximum recommended flowrate for 44mm diameter bubble traps is 3.5 liters/minute.