The Column-11-07-2017

Click the title above to open The Column November 07, 2017 Europe & Asia issue, Volume 13, Number 16, in an interactive PDF format.

How much chemistry do you really know?

Gerstel GmbH & Co. KG celebrated its 50th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion hosted a gala event open to its staff and partners from across the globe.

Peak Scientific has announced an expansion of their European presence with a number of new hires and offices.

Polyphenols are a well-known group of antioxidants widely diffused as secondary metabolites in plants, vegetables, and fruit. The Column spoke to Nicola Marchetti from the Department of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Ferrara in Ferrara, Italy, about his research into the characterization of polyphenols in red chicory using high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC–MS/MS).

The three-day Chromatographic Society meeting was held on Monday 15th until Wednesday 17th May 2017 and was hosted by Pfizer at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent, UK. This comprehensive symposium featured oral presentations from leading practitioners of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) and ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography (UHPLC) from throughout Europe. Some of the latest innovations and applications were described and the lectures were augmented and supported by a comprehensive exhibition of instrumentation and consumables. The attendees gained insight into practical application of these techniques across a variety of industries-particularly the pharmaceutical industry. As was anticipated, in a comprehensive programme there was a significant focus on SFC for chiral and preparative-scale analysis.

High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods are used today to control the quality of many chemical and pharmaceutical products. The methods are usually developed by optimizing the properties of the mobile phase with a specific column. However, if the original column is no longer in production, the result will often change when a different column is used. In this case, we were interested in finding one or two equivalent columns that can replace the original column without changes in selectivity and robustness. This study demonstrates a new way to compare columns and select suitable replacement columns. The presented method will also allow the evaluation of different columns with the same method, as well as the evaluation of the robustness of the common method with different columns.

Ultrahigh-pressure size-exclusion chromatography (UHP-SEC) offers multiple benefits for synthetic polymer characterization. However, despite the many advantages of UHP-SEC, its rapid, low-volume separation is more sensitive to column calibration errors and drift than traditional high performance (HP)-SEC. Additionally, only a small selection of column chemistries are available. It is therefore essential to combine UHP-SEC with online, low-volume multi-angle light scattering instrumentation (UHP-SEC-MALS) to overcome these challenges.