Connecting tubes, dispersion, cause

The curve in Figure IB is probably more useful from a practical point of view. Although the standard deviations of any dispersion process are not additive, they do give a better impression of the actual dispersion that a connecting tube alone can cause. It is clear that a tube 10 cm long and 0.012 cm I.D. can cause dispersion resulting in a peak with a standard deviation of 4 pi. Now, a peak with a standard deviation of 4 pi would have a base width of 16 pi and, in practice, many short... 

The sensor volume of a detector can cause dispersion and contribute to the peak variance in two ways. Firstly there will be dispersion resulting from the viscous flow of fluid through the cell sensor volume, which will furnish a variance similar in form to that from cylindrical connecting tubes. Secondly, there will be a peak spreading which results from the finite volume of the sensor. If the sensor has a significant volume, it will not measure the instantaneous concentration... 

A wide variety of different types of ion suppression columns are available for this purpose. It should be pointed out that any suppressor system introduced between the column and the detector that has a finite volume will cause some band dispersion. Consequently, the connecting tubes and suppression column must be very carefully designed to reduce this dispersion to an absolute minimum. 

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