The performance and benefits of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) have been recognized already for decades. Due to the introduction of newer generations of SFC systems in the early 2010’s, instrument robustness as well as system suitability testing have now reached the same levels of gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Consequently, the technology has regained increased interest for a variety of applications in a wide range of industries and has today surpassed the typical usage of the technique in the pharmaceutical industry for enantiomer separations.
In comparison to traditional HPLC, SFC is characterized by high resolution and high optimal mobile phase velocities. Next to these benefits, SFC exhibits a wide range of parameters which allow selectivity control including pressure, temperature, percentages of modifier and the use of additives. Furthermore, the use of super (or sub) critical CO2 as the bulk of the mobile phase is highly environmental friendly and cost effective, especially when the separations are in a later stage scaled up from analytical to (semi)preparative applications. SFC offers high orthogonality towards RPLC and HILIC separations and can therefore be considered as a valuable separation tool within any analytical laboratory.
This presentation will cover the fundamentals of SFC as well as some application examples, illustrating the power of this technology.
Isabelle Francois, PhD – TharProcess
