Deans Column Switching System
The Deans Column Switching System was first introduced at the 49th Annual Conference of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry in 2001. It builds on the pioneering work of D.R. Deans in the 1960s on Gas Chromatography.[1,2] A key feature is the placement of a switching valve outside the sample flow path, enabling remote control of flow direction for analyte trapping or analytical separation. This design eliminates dead volume entirely — crucial for nanoscale LC systems operating at mobile phase flow rates below 200 nL/min. Its first detailed application to Liquid Chromatography was described by Meiring et al. in 2002.[3]
- D.R. Deans (1965). An improved technique for back-flushing gas chromatographic columns, Journal of Chromatography A 18(3):477-81. DOI: 10.1016/S0021-9673(01)80403-9
- D.R. Deans (1968). A new Technique for Heart Cutting in Gas [1], Chromatographia 1:18-22. DOI: 10.1007/BF02259005
- H.D. Meiring et al. (2002). Nanoscale LC-MS(n): technical design and applications to peptide and protein analysis, Journal of Separation Science, 25(9):557-68. DOI: 10.1002/1615-9314(20020601)25:9<557::AID-JSSC557>3.0.CO;2-F
Key features of the Deans Column Switching System
Cost-efficient without compromise
Operated using conventional HPLC equipment and consumables rather than expensive specialized nanoLC instrumentation.
Elimination of dead volumes
Complete elimination of dead volumes, ensuring optimal separation efficiency and peak resolution — even at column flow rates as low as 10 nL/min.
Great flexibility in column dimensions
Full flexibility in selecting the stationary phase chemistry, internal diameter and lengths of the Fused Silica-based nanoscale LC columns to meet your analytical requirements.
Proven applications of our Deans Switching System
Discover here how leading scientists have achieved breakthroughs using the Deans Column Switching System — with their research published in peer-reviewed journals.
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