Principles of Auto●Blend Plus Technology
Auto●Blend Plus Technology is the use of specific algorithms to program a quaternary solvent manager to deliver buffers of a specified pH and salt concentration.
The function is derived from the practice of preparing buffer solutions by blending acidic and basic stock solutions. In the quaternary solvent manager, the percentage of flow drawn from each of the four reservoirs provides the same blending as manual buffer preparation.
A typical system configuration is shown in Figure 1. The software calculates the proportions of reservoirs A, B, C, and D based on the definitions of the buffer system. Proportions are calculated from the known pKa of the buffer or from an empirical calibration table. The required proportions from each reservoir are calculated at each pump stroke to deliver the pH and salt concentration specified by the separation method. The system and software have been validated for accurate pH delivery, both at constant pH and with simple pH gradients.
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Figure 1. Principle of Auto•Blend Plus Technology . The four mobile phase reservoirs of the ACQUITY UPLC® H-Class System are filled with concentrated stocks and the Auto•Blend Plus Technology algorithm is used to calculate the proportions required from each reservoir for a specified pH and salt concentration.
For details, see the HPLC 2011 poster: Efficient Use of pH Gradients in the Ion Exchange Analysis of Proteins