Capillary-Based Instrument for the Simultaneous Measurement of Solution Viscosity and Solute Diffusion Coefficient at Pressures up to 2000 bar and Implications for Ultrahigh Pressure Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

An instrument based on the Poiseuille flow principle capable of measuring solution viscosities at high pressures has been modified to observe UV-absorbent analytes in order to allow for the simultaneous measurement of analyte diffusivity. A capillary time-of-flight (CTOF) instrument was used to measure the viscosity of acetonitrile-water mixtures in all decade volume percent increments and the corresponding diffusion coefficients of small aromatic molecules in these solvent mixtures from atmospheric pressure to 2000 bar (approximately 30,000 psi) at 25 degrees C. The instrument works by utilizing a relatively small pressure drop (<100 bar) across a fused-silica capillary which has both the inlet and outlet pressurized so that the average column pressure can be significantly elevated (up to 2000 bar). Measurements with this instrument agree with high-pressure viscosity data collected previously using a CTOF viscometer, as well as with literature values obtained with falling-body viscometers of the Bridgman design. It has been further determined that, for the small molecules included in this study, trends in solute diffusivity with respect to pressure follow the predictions of the Stokes-Einstein equation when the solvent viscosity is corrected as a function of pressure. Because the instrument described herein determines viscosity and diffusivity independently, the effect of pressure on analyte hydrodynamic radius can also be monitored. An analysis of ultrahigh pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) data was performed using the pressure-corrected diffusion coefficient of hydroquinone to demonstrate the effect of this phenomenon on the analysis of chromatographic performance.