Method for adjusting pressure sensor and liquid chromatography analyzer

The present invention relates to a method for adjusting a pressure sensor and a liquid chromatography analyzer.

A liquid chromatograph (LC: Liquid Chromatograph) is a chromatograph that uses liquid as a mobile phase delivered to a column to separate a sample. A liquid sample containing an object to be measured, which is introduced into an analysis flow passage from an injection portion, is pumped to the column according to the mobile phase. The liquid sample is separated into a plurality of components using a difference in affinity between the stationary phase (filler) filled in the column and the mobile phase. Each separated component is detected using a detector such as an ultraviolet/visible absorbance spectrophotometer, a fluorescence spectrophotometer, or a mass spectrometer.

The liquid chromatograph called as high performance liquid chromatograph (HPLC: High Performance Liquid Chromatography uses the liquid that is compressed at a high pressure by a liquid feeding device with the column filling material decreased in the particle size, in order to shorten the analysis time and improve the separation performance. Particularly, a liquid chromatograph using the column with the filling material having the particle size 2 μm or smaller is called ultra high-performance liquid chromatograph (UHPLC: Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatograph).

As a result of responding to the improvement in performance by reducing the particle size of the filling material in the column, the liquid chromatograph requires a high pressure resistance in the equipment and the flow passages that form the liquid chromatograph, especially in the equipment and the flow passages at an upstream side of the column. This is because, as the pressure of the equipment gets higher, a pressure leak from the liquid feeding device and the analytical flow passages in a high-pressure environment has a greater impact on the analytical performance. Therefore, high reliability is required of a pressure sensor that detects the pressure in the liquid feeding device and the analytical flow passages.

When the performance of the pressure sensor deteriorates due to a temporal change or a malfunction, the liquid feeding device may not satisfy the desired performance, and therefore, it is desirable to perform a periodic inspection and adjustment. Conventionally, a device user mainly performs the offset adjustment as the maintenance of the pressure sensor (Patent Literature 1). In contrast, gain adjustment of the pressure sensor is performed by an engineer with expertise, using the dedicated equipment such as an external pressure gauge and the like, which is not easy to perform.

Patent Literature

Patent Literature 1: WO/2015/033664

Technical Problem

It enables the inspection and the adjustment of a pressure sensor to be performed easily without adding a complicated mechanism.

Solution to Problem

A method for adjusting a pressure sensor in a liquid chromatography analyzer including a column installation portion, a liquid feeding device configured to feed a mobile phase to a column installed in the column installation portion, and a pressure sensor configured to detect pressure of a flow passage from the liquid feeding device to the column installed in the column installation portion, the method comprising: a first step of acquiring a first output value P1 of the pressure sensor measured by opening the flow passage to the atmosphere or by installing, in the column installation portion, a first column that is not filled with a filler, a second step of acquiring a second output value P2 of the pressure sensor measured by installing a second column having a known pressure resistance Ps in the column installation portion, and a gain updating step of updating a gain of the pressure sensor by using the first output value P1 and the second output value P2.

Advantageous Effects of Invention

The present invention provides a liquid chromatography analyzer that makes it possible to easily perform the inspection and the adjustment of a pressure sensor without adding a complicated mechanism and a method for adjusting the pressure sensor.

The other issues and novel features will be apparent from the description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a liquid chromatography analyzer according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a procedure for inspecting and adjusting a pressure sensor.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating processing of updating a gain of a pressure correction formula.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a liquid chromatography analyzer according to a second embodiment.

First Embodiment

Referring to a schematic diagram of FIG. 1 , a configuration example of a liquid chromatography analyzer 100 will be described. The liquid chromatography analyzer 100 is roughly formed by a mobile phase tank 101 , a liquid feeding unit 102 , a sample introduction unit 103 , a column installation portion 104 , a detector 105 , a control unit 112 , an operation unit 113 , and a display unit 114 .

The liquid feeding unit 102 , as an example, includes a liquid feeding device 106 , a pressure sensor 107 , a flow passage switching valve 108 , a feeding flow passage C0, an analysis flow passage C1, and a discharge flow passage C2. The liquid feeding device 106 absorbs the mobile phase used to carry and separate a sample from the mobile phase tank 101 , compresses the above at a high pressure, and discharges it. As the liquid feeding unit 102 , there is shown a configuration example in which one type of mobile phase or a mixture of plural types of mobile phases is fed by one liquid feeding device 106 .

The pressure sensor 107 detects a pressure within a pipe ranging from the feeding flow passage C0 for feeding the mobile phase in the liquid feeding unit 102 to the column installed in the column installation portion. The flow passage switching valve 108 is connected to a downstream side of the liquid feeding device 106 , to connect the feeding flow passage C0 selectively with the analysis flow passage C1 connected to the sample introduction unit 103 or the discharge flow passage C2.

The column installation portion 104 is designed to be replaceable with a separation column 109 during the analysis and with an empty column 110 or a column 111 with a known pressure resistance during the inspection and the adjustment of the pressure sensor 107 . The separation column 109 , the empty column 110 , and the column 111 with a known pressure resistance are all connected to the sample introduction unit 103 through the analysis flow passage C3. The pressure resistance value of the column 111 is Ps. During the analysis, the separation column 109 installed in the column installation portion 104 separates the sample introduced from the sample introduction unit 103 according to the mobile phase into each component. The detector 105 is connected to a downstream side of the column installation portion 104 to detect each component separated in the separation column 109 .

The control unit 112 controls the liquid feeding unit 102 , the sample introduction unit 103 , the column installation portion 104 , and the detector 105 , to acquire the liquid chromatograph data and perform the data processing for the inspection and the adjustment of the pressure sensor. The operation unit 113 includes an input device such as keyboard, ten key, mouse, and the like and a user inputs various instructions into the control unit 112 . The display unit 114 is a device for displaying the analytical conditions and results, which is formed by, for example, a liquid crystal display, an organic EL display, or the like.

Referring to the flow chart of FIG. 2 , the inspection and the adjustment procedure of the pressure sensor 107 according to the first embodiment, which is performed by the control unit 112 , will be described.

In the first process (Step S 201 and Step S 205 ), the flow passage switching valve 108 is switched to the side of the discharge flow passage C2, to acquire the output value P1 of the pressure sensor 107 by opening the flow passage having the pressure sensor 107 to the atmosphere. Alternatively, the empty column 110 which no filler is filled in, with the pressure resistance nearly close to zero, is installed in the column installation portion 104 , to acquire the output value P1 of the pressure sensor 107 when feeding liquid under a predetermined feeding condition. The predetermined feeding condition is defined as the feeding condition under which the liquid chromatography analyzer 100 performs the analysis. It is the same in the second process. In either case, the true value of the output value P1 is zero.

In the second process (Step S 202 and Step S 206 ), the column 111 with a known pressure resistance (Ps) is installed in the column installation portion 104 , to acquire the output value P2 of the pressure sensor 107 when feeding liquid under the predetermined feeding condition.

In the pressure sensor output value determination (Step S 203 and Step S 207 ), the following (formula 1) is used to determine whether or not it is within an allowance range (±Pd).

− Pd <( P 2− P 1)− Ps<+Pd   (formula 1)

The (formula 1) is to determine whether a difference (P2−P1) between the output value P2 of the pressure sensor 107 acquired in the second process and the output value P1 of the pressure sensor 107 acquired in the first process is within the allowance range (±Pd) with respect to the true value (Ps−0).

In Step S 203 , when the output value of the pressure sensor is within the allowance range, the process ends normally, while when the output value of the pressure sensor is outside the allowance range, the gain of the pressure correction formula is updated.

Referring to FIG. 3 , the processing of updating the gain of the pressure correction formula (Step S 204 ) will be described. The pressure sensor 107 corrects the detected pressure value according to the pressure correction formula and outputs it. The pressure correction formula of the pressure sensor 107 is represented by the following (formula 2) with the output value (detected value) of the pressure sensor 107 before correction as P r , the output value of the pressure sensor 107 after correction as P m , the gain as K G , and the offset as K O .

P m =K G ( P r −K O )  (formula 2)

The gain K G is updated so that the output value P m acquired by correcting the output value P r of the pressure sensor 107 before correction according to the pressure correction formula represented by the (formula 2) may be the true value. Here, the offset K O is calculated to satisfy 0=P m =P r −K O in the first process and updated.

The output value before correction in the second process is defined as P r =P0. In the second process (Step S 202 ), the output value P2 is calculated by the pressure correction formula before update. When the gain of the pressure correction formula before update is defined as K G =K1, it satisfies the following (formula 3): (P2−P1)=P m =K1 (P0−K O ).

In the gain updating of the pressure correction formula, when the gain in the updated pressure correction formula is defined as K G =K2, since the true value of the pressure resistance value of the column 111 is Ps, the gain K G is defined to satisfy the following:

( Ps− 0)= P m =K 2( P 0− K O )  (formula 4)

Therefore, the updated gain K2 can be acquired by using the (formula 5):

K 2= K 1× Ps /( P 2− P 1)  (formula 5)

The (formula 5) can be derived according to the (formula 3) and the (formula 4).

After the gain updating of the pressure correction formula (Step S 204 ), the first process (Step S 205 ), the second process (Step S 206 ), and the pressure sensor output value determination (Step S 207 ) are performed again and when the pressure sensor output value determination (Step S 207 ) is within the allowance range, the process ends normally. When it is outside the allowance range, it notifies the pressure sensor abnormality. In this case, there may be an abnormality occurring in the pressure sensor 107 and a leak or the other abnormality occurring in the liquid feeding device 106 .

Here, although an example of opening air or using the empty column 110 is shown in the first process, since the pressure correction is a two-point correction, it is possible to correct the pressure when there are the output value of the pressure sensor 107 at a low pressure, the output value of the pressure sensor 107 at a high pressure, and the respective reference pressure values. Therefore, instead of the empty column 110 , it is also possible to correct the pressure using a column with a known pressure resistance, which has a smaller pressure resistance than the column 111 with a known pressure resistance used in the second process (Step S 202 and Step S 206 ).

As mentioned above, only by replacing the separation column installed in the column installation portion with the empty column or the column with a known pressure resistance, it is possible to perform the gain adjustment of the pressure sensor 107 easily, without any expert knowledge and without adding any complicated mechanism.

Second Embodiment

This time, a liquid chromatography analyzer 100 A according to a second embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 4 . In FIG. 4 , the same reference numerals are attached to the same components as those of the first embodiment and the overlapping description is omitted herein. The liquid chromatography analyzer 100 A roughly includes the mobile phase tank 101 , the liquid feeding unit 102 , the sample introduction unit 103 , a column unit 116 , the detector 105 , the control unit 112 , the operation unit 113 , and the display unit 114 .

The column unit 116 includes column switching valves 115 A and 115 B for selectively connecting the separation column 109 , the empty column 110 , and the column 111 with a known pressure resistance to the analysis flow passage at the upstream side and the downstream side of the column installation portions 104 A to C.

The inspection and the adjustment of the pressure sensor 107 is performed in the same procedure as that of the first embodiment. When performing the first process (Step S 201 and Step S 205 ), however, the empty column 110 is connected to the analysis flow passage in the column unit 116 and when performing the second process (Step S 202 and Step S 206 ), the column 111 with a known pressure resistance is connected to the analysis flow passage in the column unit 116 .

According to this, the columns can be switched by selecting the flow passage according to the column switching valves 115 A and 115 B, which saves the manual switching work of the columns and makes it possible for the control unit 112 to perform the inspection and the adjustment of the pressure sensor 107 automatically.

100 , 100 A: liquid chromatography analyzer

101 : mobile phase tank

102 : liquid feeding unit

103 : sample introduction unit

104 , 104 A, 104 B, 104 C: column installation portion

105 : detector

106 : liquid feeding device

107 : pressure sensor

108 : flow passage switching valve

109 : separation column

110 : empty column

111 : column having known pressure resistance

112 : control unit

113 : operation unit

114 : display unit

115 A, 115 B: column switching valve

116 : column unit