Major advances in instrumentation and technology have made high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) a pervasive tool in virtually all areas of chemical and biomedical research today. Despite HPLC's enormous growth, technical problems still bedevil most users at least occasionally.

Based on their immensely successful short courses, Dolan and Snyder's landmark new book — Troubleshooting LC Systems — now makes available to every practicing chromatographer the authors' wealth of expertise from years of hands-on troubleshooting of real-world LC problems — problems that routinely cause crises and unproductive downtime in nearly every lab.

Believing that successful troubleshooting requires an understanding of the basics, Dolan and Snyder open by setting forth all the fundamental principles of LC operation, then move on to a microscopic description of all the elements of LC devices, to lay out their optimal preventive maintenance routines, and ultimately to offer an unprecedentedly thorough treatment of each and every facet of troubleshooting.

Displaying a special tutorial mastery — honed to a fineness during their ongoing teaching and consulting activities, and a well-received feature column in LC Magazine — the book's chapters cover: automation and robotics • approaches to troubleshooting • reactions of samples • basic separation techniques • valves, tubing, syringes • band broadening and tailing • preventive maintenance • column packing and flushing • individual LC modules • troubleshooting principles • reagents and buffering • specific problems in separation • ghost and vacancy peaks • quantitation and calibration • pumps, seals, and pistons • gradient elution problems • column composition • concentration and blockages • sample cleanup • temperature and mixing effects • detectors and recorders • column packing and flushing.

In short, Dolan and Snyder's eminently practical new guide to Troubleshooting LC Systems is an essential laboratory handbook — one that empowers expert and novice chromatographer alike to solve every sort of practical laboratory problem on a day-to-day basis. No one using an LC system should be without it!