How to Choose a Chromatograhy Column

There have been significant advances in column technology since the early day of chromatography. These advances have seen a greater understanding of the dispersion processes that occurs within the column and how to reduce them, resulting in sharper chromatographic peaks. However, chromatography is not just about sharp peaks, it is about separating two or more components and so a critical parameter is the column selectivity. This presentation will focus on why column selectivity is so important, initially reviewing the resolution equation to validate the notion that it is selectivity that drives a separation. The presentation will then move on to discuss how to effectively characterise the array of columns that are available for separation scientists, and how this information can be utilised to guide column selection and ultimately, improve the performance of the separation.

Separation scientists should have a tool-box of tricks that they can employ to optimise the separation of a critical pair. An important aspect of this is a suite of columns that can drive selectivity differences. In this part of the presentation a set of method development columns will be presented that will highlight how column selection can be critical and what types of columns should be employed to allow fast optimisation of the chromatographic method. Six different column chemistries will be investigated and the impact that these have on the selectivity of a series of test compounds will be highlighted.

For separations to be optimal a series of other parameters also need to be assessed/optimised and the final part of the presentation will discuss how the column selection can be integrated with the other parameters such as mobile phase composition, pH and temperature to optimise the separation process. A considered design of experiments approach will be taken to allow full optimisation of the separation process.

For more information, please contact us at webinar@avantorsciences.com