Gas liquid separator for chromatography applications

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10792589-B2
Application number	US-201715791622-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 24, 2017
Priority date	Oct 25, 2016
Publication date	Oct 6, 2020
Grant date	Oct 6, 2020

Abstract

Examples of gas liquid separators include a chamber, a fluid mixture inlet, a gas outlet and a liquid outlet. The fluid mixture inlet and the gas and liquid outlets are in fluid communication with the chamber. A fluid mixture received at the fluid mixture inlet diffuses inside the chamber and is separated into a liquid and a gas. The separated liquid is gravity-fed to the liquid outlet. The gas liquid separators have reduced dispersion and increased liquid recovery in comparison to conventional gas liquid separators used for chromatographic separations. The reduced dispersion yields an improvement in the shape of chromatographic peaks.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A gas liquid separator, comprising:
a chamber having a chamber wall, an inlet end, an outlet end and a chamber cross-section defined along a chamber axis extending between the inlet and outlet ends wherein an area of the chamber cross-section increases with increasing distance along the chamber axis from the inlet end, the chamber wall including a surface that extends from the inlet end to the outlet end;
a fluid mixture inlet in fluid communication with the chamber and disposed at the inlet end of the chamber to receive a flow of a fluid mixture;
a gas outlet in fluid communication with the chamber and disposed at the outlet end of the chamber to provide a flow of a gas separated from the fluid mixture;
a liquid outlet in fluid communication with the chamber and disposed at the outlet end of the chamber to provide a flow of the liquid separated from the fluid mixture; and
a channel on the surface of the chamber wall to conduct the liquid to the liquid outlet.

2. The gas liquid separator of claim 1 wherein the channel comprises a bend along the surface of the chamber wall.

3. The gas liquid separator of claim 1 wherein a shape of the chamber is a truncated cone.

4. The gas liquid separator of claim 1 wherein a shape of the chamber cross-section is a parallelogram.

5. The gas liquid separator of claim 1 wherein a shape of the cross-section is a circle.

6. The gas liquid separator of claim 1 wherein the chamber wall includes a proximal end plate, a distal end plate and a side wall that extends between the proximal and distal end plates, and wherein the channel is on the side wall and extends from the proximal end plate to the distal end plate.

7. The gas liquid separator of claim 6 wherein the side wall is formed from a sheet metal.

Assignees

• Waters Technologies Corp

Inventors

• Berg Emily J
• Shreve Joshua A
• Denecke Edwin H

Classifications

• B01D19/0042

  modifying the liquid flow (B01D19/0021 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G01N30/84

  Preparation of the fraction to be distributed · CPC title

• B01D19/0021

  by bringing the liquid in a thin layer · CPC title

• B01D15/10

  characterised by constructional or operational features · CPC title

• B01D19/0063

  Regulation, control including valves and floats (for construction and details of valves F16K) · CPC title