Syringes

As a nurse, there is no doubt that you use syringes frequently. Let s take a closer look at how much pressure is created when you apply a 5.00 N force on a syringe plunger that has a diameter of 1.00 cm. Pressure is force per unit area. We have been provided with the force in newtons however, we need to calculate the cross sectional area of the plunger in m2 in order to obtain units of pascals or kilopascals. The area of a circle is 7tr2  

Note in the above calculation that the diameter was converted to meters and subsequently divided by 2 in order to get the radius of the circle in meters. We are now ready to calculate the pressure created by the plunger in the syringe  

Example How much pressure is created when you apply a 5.00 N force on a syringe plunger that has a diameter of 2.00 cm  

Notice that doubling the diameter of the syringe decreases the pressure by a factor of 4  

A block of wood, having a mass of 16 g and measuring 3.0 cm x 3.0 cm x 3.0 cm, is resting on a table. How much pressure does it exert on the table To calculate the pressure we will need the force involved and the area. The force is simply the weight (in newtons) of the block and the area is the cross-sectional area of one face of the cube of wood. 

Clearly this method of determining the absolute value of the volume dispensed to the column is unlikely to provide an accuracy of the same order as the reproducibility. Some of this uncertainty will arise from 

Reproduced from company literature (Rheodyne 2001) with permission of Rheodyne LLC (www.rheodyne.com). 

As mentioned above, cleaning of these syringes is of crucial importance for good performance. Naturally, when used as described above they should also be dry before 

The fitness for purpose concept, introduced briefly in the Preface, will be a recurring theme throughout this book and an extensive discussion is included in Section 9.2. This concept addresses the fact of life that not all analytical problems need to be addressed using the same precautions to obtain the ultimately attainable accuracy and precision. For example, there is no point in expending large amounts of time and effort to obtain a calibration curve with 1 % uncertainty if the analytical procedure yields uncertainties of 10% when applied to real-world samples. 

There are two broad classes of calibration solutions used in analyses of the kind discussed here. The first class, referred to as calibration solutions, corresponds to solutions of the analyte(s) in clean solvent, possibly also containing internal standard(s) such solutions can be certified calibration solutions (Section 2.2.2) or solutions prepared in the analyst s own laboratory according to procedures determined ahead of time to be fit for the purpose for which the analysis is to be undertaken. The other class of calibration solutions, which will be referred to as matrix-matched calibrators (sometimes just calibrators ), is prepared from aliquots of a blank (or control) matrix (identical or almost so to the matrix composing the analytical samples but devoid of the target anal54 e(s) to within the detection limits of the analytical method, see Section 9.4.7). When a suitable blank matrix is available, this is the preferred approach since many interferences and other effects are largely accounted for automatically. 

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The mixture to be studied is injected by syringe into the head of the column and the molecules comprising the mixture are adsorbed in varying degrees by the stationary phase and desorbed by the liquid phase. At the end of this succession of equilibria, the components of the mixture, more or less separated from each other, leave the column with the solvent. 

The automated pendant drop technique has been used as a film balance to study the surface tension of insoluble monolayers [75] (see Chapter IV). A motor-driven syringe allows changes in drop volume to study surface tension as a function of surface areas as in conventional film balance measurements. This approach is useful for materials available in limited quantities and it can be extended to study monolayers at liquid-liquid interfaces [76],... 

Neumann has adapted the pendant drop experiment (see Section II-7) to measure the surface pressure of insoluble monolayers [70]. By varying the droplet volume with a motor-driven syringe, they measure the surface pressure as a function of area in both expansion and compression. In tests with octadecanol monolayers, they found excellent agreement between axisymmetric drop shape analysis and a conventional film balance. Unlike the Wilhelmy plate and film balance, the pendant drop experiment can be readily adapted to studies in a pressure cell [70]. In studies of the rate dependence of the molecular area at collapse, Neumann and co-workers found more consistent and reproducible results with the actual area at collapse rather than that determined by conventional extrapolation to zero surface pressure [71]. The collapse pressure and shape of the pressure-area isotherm change with the compression rate [72]. 

Figure C3.1.2. Stopped-flow apparatus with motor-driven syringes. Syringe plungers force tire reactants A and B tlirough a mixing chamber into a spectral cell. Kinetic data collection begins when tire effluent syringe plunger is pushed out to contact an activation switch, about a millisecond after tire initiation of mixing. (Adapted from Pilling M J and Seakins P W 1995 Reaction Kinetics (Oxford Oxford University Press)...

Common types of pipets and syringes (a) transfer pipet (b) measuring pipet (c) digital pipet (d) syringe. 

Schematic of a liquid-liquid microextraction showing syringe needle with attached 1-pL droplet.

Solid-phase microextractions also have been developed. In one approach, a fused silica fiber is placed inside a syringe needle. The fiber, which is coated with a thin organic film, such as poly(dimethyl siloxane), is lowered into the sample by depressing a plunger and exposed to the sample for a predetermined time. The fiber is then withdrawn into the needle and transferred to a gas chromatograph for analysis. 

A solid-phase extraction in which the solid adsorbent is coated on a fused-silica fiber held within a syringe needle. 

Samples and calibration standards are prepared for analysis using a 10-mL syringe. Add 10.00 mL of each sample and standard to separate 14-mL screw-cap vials containing 2.00 mL of pentane. Shake vigorously for 1 min to effect the separation. Wait 60 s for the phases to separate. Inject 3.0-pL aliquots of the pentane layer into a GC equipped with a 2-mm internal diameter, 2-m long glass column packed with a stationary phase of 10% squalane on a packing material of 80/100 mesh Chromosorb WAW. Operate the column at 67 °C and a flow rate of 25 mL/min. 

In the load position the sampling loop is isolated from the mobile phase and is open to the atmosphere. A syringe with a capacity several times that of the sampling loop is used to place the sample in the loop. Any extra sample beyond that needed to fill the sample loop exits through the waste line. After loading the sample, the injector is turned to the inject position. In this position the mobile phase is directed through the sampling loop, and the sample is swept onto the column. 

Quantitative Calculations Quantitative analyses are often easier to conduct with HPLC than GC because injections are made with a fixed-volume injection loop instead of a syringe. As a result, variations in the amount of injected sample are minimized, and quantitative measurements can be made using external standards and a normal calibration curve. 

Injector The sample, typically 5-200 )J,L, is placed in the carrier stream by injection. Although syringe injections through a rubber septum are used, a more common means of injection is the rotary, or loop, injector used in ITPLC and shown in Figure 12.28 of Chapter 12. This type of injector provides reproducible injection volumes and is easily adaptable to automation, a feature that is particularly important when high sampling rates are desired. 

For GC, the injector is most frequently a small heated space attached to the start of the column. A sample of the mixture to be analyzed is injected into this space by use of a syringe, which pierces a rubber septum. The injector needs to be hot enough to immediately vaporize the sample, which is then swept onto the head of the column by the mobile gas phase. Generally, the injector is kept at a temperature 50 C higher than is the column oven. Variants on this principle are in use, in particular the split/splitless injector. This injector can be used in a splitless mode, in which the entire injected sample goes onto the column, or in a split mode, in which only part of the sample goes onto the column, the remainder vented to atmosphere. For other less usual forms of injector, a specialist book on GC should be consulted. 

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