Modern Liquid Chromatography

Modern Liquid Chromatography was the hot topic of the day in a standing room only technical session on the third day of Pittcon 2007.

Arranged by Peter W Carr (University of Minnesota) and Stephen G Weber (University of Pittsburgh), the session’s favorite subject seemed to be high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Joseph J. Kirkland of Advanced Materials Technology, Inc. kicked off the session with a presentation entitled “New ‘Fused-Core’ Particles for Very Fast HPLC Separations.”

Kirkland explained that there is a great deal of interest in having separations performed quickly, whether to increase sample throughput or for 2-D separation use.

There is strong interest in HPLC columns for performing very fast separations, either for increasing sample throughput or for use in multidimensional (2-D) separations. One approach for achieving fast separations is to use very small particles.

“However, columns of sub-2-um particles must be operated at very high back pressures for expected efficiency, and special HPLC apparatus often is required for optimum performance,” Kirkland said.

LCGC Columnist and 2007 Dal Nogare Award winner John Dolan was the next speaker in the session. The “LC Troubleshooting” Editor focused on “Temperature Selectivity in RP-HPLC.

Dolan went over the role of the method and its use with other separation parameters.

“The role of column temperature in reversed-phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) is one that is under-appreciated and under-utilized as a tool to enhance separations. Most workers recognize that temperature and retention are related, and this is generalized by the rule of thumb for isocratic separation that retention changes by about 2% for every 1 degree C change in column temperature,” Dolan said.