High pressure flow proportioning for staggered chromatography using a single pump

Abstract

A system and method for performing staggered separations are described. The system includes a plurality of solvent pumps; a plurality of proportioning valves each being in fluid communication with one of the solvent pumps, each proportioning valve having an inlet to receive a solvent from the respective one of the solvent pumps and having a plurality of outlets, wherein the proportioning valves are configured to control a flow of the solvent from each of the outlets; and a plurality of separation devices each in fluid communication with one of the outlets. Each of the separation devices receives a solvent mixture having a composition defined by the flows of the solvents from each of the respective outlets.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.