Wednesday, August 5, 2026

NanoLC dead volume calculator since I can't find the MSBioworks one!

 

nanoLC System Volume — Flow Path Calculator
This is a nanoLC volume calculator inspired by the AMAZING (but dead?) MSBioWorks phone application I miss a lot and made with the frustrating assistance of some AI thing my university lets me use. It's honestly pretty good at color palettes, even if it's bad at math and confident/arrogant about it.

nanoLC System Volume

To use this, I've assumed some things about your flow path. You'll need to select how many columns and tubing sections. Let me know if I'm not considering modern nanoLC options, yo. It'll autofill some normalish stuff, so you'll need to fill in the inner diameter and length for each. It sums everything into total system volume live.

00 Set Up Your Flow Path

Sections 02 and 03 below build themselves to match — enter the inner diameter and length for each capillary as it appears.

Line weight and column shading scale with each segment's volume — thicker lines and denser fill hold more mobile phase.You'll have to believe me because I can't figure out why these fonts are OUT OF CONTROL
Total system volume
0.0 nL
01 Injection Loop 0.0 nL
02 Tubing Sections 0.0 nL total
03 Columns 0.0 nL total
04 Additional Dead Volume 0.0 nL total
Breakdown
Internal Dead Volume Injection loop + pre-valve tubing
0.0 nL
0.0% of total
Operational Dead Volume (Probably the one you care about) Valve → columns → MS inlet
0.0 nL
0.0% of total
ComponentZoneVolumeShare%
How this is calculated (shoutout to Cheryl Reger for somehow being a legit geometry and algebra2 teacher in one of the single worst school districts in the United States) It's all middle school geometry, yo!
Cylindrical volume — tubing, loop, and columns are treated as cylinders:
V = π × (ID / 2)² × L
Column void volume — the mobile-phase-accessible fraction of a packed bed:
Vvoid = Vgeometric × εt   (εt ≈ 0.6–0.7 for fully porous particles)
Total system volume — sum of every contributor along the flow path:
Vsystem = Vloop + ΣVtubing + ΣVcolumn + ΣVfittings
This is the volume relevant to gradient dwell / delay volume and extra-column band broadening — figures depend heavily on real fitting and frit geometry, so treat this as an estimate to refine against a manufacturer's spec sheet. Also...there isn't really a "Zero Dead Volume" union. There has to be a little gap.

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