Agilent supporting SFC development

Agilent Technologies and Aurora SFC Systems announced that Agilent is providing technical support for the development of the Aurora SFC Fusion A5TM, an analytical instrument that converts existing high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) systems into supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) systems.

"As regulatory requirements for drug development become more stringent, particularly for the separation and purification of chiral compounds, the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly exploring SFC as one of the technical options to meet this need," said Stefan Schuette, senior marketing director for Agilent's Liquid Chromatography Business. "We believe customers will be very pleased by this innovative solution, which will set new standards for performance, reliability and ease-of-use of SFC."

"With the dramatic increase in sensitivity of the SFC Fusion A5, SFC is suddenly, and for the first time, viable as a technique for trace analysis, completely comparable to HPLC," said Dr Terry Berger, founder and chief scientist of Aurora SFC Systems.

SFC is a method to substantially reduce organic solvent consumption, particularly interesting for acetonitrile, which is currently experiencing a global supply shortage. Acetonitrile is a solvent used extensively as a mobile phase component in HPLC analysis.

Information about Aurora can be found at www.aurorasfc.com and for Agilent at www.agilent.com