Professional Documents
Culture Documents
\
|
=
= =
2
2
2
2
o
Where velocity along the direction of elution (x) is u
x
. Note: we calculated the time, t, from the
velocity and the overall column length. This equation tells us that to have small plate height we
want a velocity like a firehose, not a trickle.
3. Sources that lead to broadening that are proportional to the velocity. Another source of
broadening is equilibration. If you dont let the solute/analyte sit long enough to partition
according to the equilibrium constant (e.g. partition coefficient) between the mobile and
stationary phase then you have a distribution of partition coefficients and hence, a broad
chromatogram. This term is sometimes called the mass transfer term:
x
s
trans
transfer
u
D k
d k
L
H
+
~ =
2 '
2 '
2
) 1 (
o
In this expression we use D
s
which is the diffusion constant in the stationary phase, k the
capacity factor of the analyte, and d is the thickness of the stationary phase.
On the course website you will find and excel sheet entitled VanDeemter.xls. In this excel sheet
you can run different conditions for the Van Deemter equation and compare how hard, or easy, it
may be to minimize the plate height for a given separation.