[Development and evaluation of a single stroke direct-driven ultrahigh pressure nano pump]

With the development of life science, nano liquid chromatography systems are being involved in various applications in the field of biochemical analysis. Being one of the key components in the system, the nano flow rate pump directly affected the accuracy and repeatability of the analysis. Based on two high precision direct-driven motors and a ten-port switch valve, a single stroke direct-driven ultrahigh pressure nano pump was developed. The results show that the accuracy of the flow rate and stability were better than 1% and 0.7%, respectively, at 500 nL/min. The maximum operating pressure was more than 100 MPa, and the gradient deviation was lower than 1%. The nano pump was used to construct a nano liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry system. A bovine serum albumin (BSA) digest (1 μg) was analyzed by the system, and a sequence coverage of 45% was achieved. Furthermore, 2809 proteins were identified from a 1.25 μg Hela cell digest. All these results demonstrated that the single stroke direct-driven ultrahigh pressure nano pump could be a useful tool in the biochemical analyses, especially for proteome research.