Demonstration of High Speeds with Low Pressure Drops Using 1.8 μm Particles in SFC

Supercritical fluid extraction-supercritical fluid chromatography of saliva: Single-quadrupole mass spectrometry monitoring of caffeine for gastric emptying studies†

Saliva is an attractive sampling matrix for measuring various endogenous and exogeneous substances but requires sample treatment prior to chromatographic analysis. Exploiting supercritical CO₂ for both extraction and chromatography simplifies sample preparation, reduces organic solvent consumption, and minimizes exposure to potentially infectious samples, but has not yet been applied to oral fluid. Here, we demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of online supercritical fluid extraction coupled to supercritical fluid chromatography and single-quadrupole mass spectrometry for monitoring the model salivary tracer caffeine. A comparison of ¹³ C- and ³² S-labeled internal standards with external standard calibration confirmed the superiority of stable isotope-labeled caffeine over nonanalogous internal standards. As proof of concept, the validated method was applied to saliva from a magnetic resonance imaging study of gastric emptying. After administration of 35 mg caffeine via ice capsule, salivary levels correlated with magnetic resonance imaging data, corroborating caffeine's usefulness as tracer of gastric emptying (R²  = 0.945). In contrast to off-line methods, online quantification required only minute amounts of organic solvents and a single manual operation prior to online bioanalysis of saliva, thus demonstrating the usefulness of CO₂ -based extraction and separation techniques for potentially infective biomatrices.

A Retention-Matching Strategy for Method Transfer in Supercritical Fluid Chromatography: Introducing the Isomolar Plot Approach

A strategy to match any retention shifts due to increased or decreased pressure drop during supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) method transfer is presented. The strategy relies on adjusting the co-solvent molarity without the need to adjust the back-pressure regulator. Exact matching can be obtained with minimal changes in separation selectivity. To accomplish this, we introduce the isomolar plot approach, which shows the variation in molar co-solvent concentration depending on the mass fraction of co-solvent, pressure, and temperature, here exemplified by CO₂–methanol. This plot allowed us to unify the effects of the co-solvent mass fraction and density on retention in SFC. The approach, which was verified on 12 known empirical retention models for each enantiomer of six basic pharmaceuticals, allowed us to numerically calculate the apparent retention factor for any column pressure drop. The strategy can be implemented either using a mechanistic approach if retention models are known or empirically by iteratively adjusting the co-solvent mass fraction. As a rule of thumb for the empirical approach, we found that the relative mass fraction adjustment needed is proportional to the relative change in the retention factor caused by a change in the pressure drop. Different proportionality constants were required to match retention in the case of increasing or decreasing pressure drops.

A systematic investigation of sample diluents in modern supercritical fluid chromatography

This paper focuses on the possibility to inject large volumes (up to 10μL) in ultra-high performance supercritical fluid chromatography (UHPSFC) under generic gradient conditions. Several injection and method parameters have been individually evaluated (i.e. analyte concentration, injection volume, initial percentage of co-solvent in the gradient, nature of the weak needle wash solvent, nature of the sample diluent, nature of the column and of the analyte). The most critical parameters were further investigated using in a multivariate approach. The overall results suggested that several aprotic solvents including methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), dichloromethane, acetonitrile or cyclopentyl methyl ether (CPME) were well adapted for the injection of large volume in UHPSFC, while MeOH was generally the worst alternative. However, the nature of the stationary phase also had a strong impact and some of these diluents did not perform equally on each column. This was due to the existence of a competition in the adsorption of the analyte and the diluent on the stationary phase. This observation introduced the idea that the sample diluent should not only be chosen according to the analyte but also to the column chemistry to limit the interactions between the diluent and the ligands. Other important characteristics of the "ideal" SFC sample diluent were finally highlighted. Aprotic solvents with low viscosity are preferable to avoid strong solvent effects and viscous fingering, respectively. In the end, the authors suggest that the choice of the sample diluent should be part of the method development, as a function of the analyte and the selected stationary phase.

Supercritical Fluid Chromatography of Drugs: Parallel Factor Analysis for Column Testing in a Wide Range of Operational Conditions

Retention mechanisms involved in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) are influenced by interdependent parameters (temperature, pressure, chemistry of the mobile phase, and nature of the stationary phase), a complexity which makes the selection of a proper stationary phase for a given separation a challenging step. For the first time in SFC studies, Parallel Factor Analysis (PARAFAC) was employed to evaluate the chromatographic behavior of eight different stationary phases in a wide range of chromatographic conditions (temperature, pressure, and gradient elution composition). Design of Experiment was used to optimize experiments involving 14 pharmaceutical compounds present in biological and/or environmental samples and with dissimilar physicochemical properties. The results showed the superiority of PARAFAC for the analysis of the three-way (column × drug × condition) data array over unfolding the multiway array to matrices and performing several classical principal component analyses. Thanks to the PARAFAC components, similarity in columns' function, chromatographic trend of drugs, and correlation between separation conditions could be simply depicted: columns were grouped according to their H-bonding forces, while gradient composition was dominating for condition classification. Also, the number of drugs could be efficiently reduced for columns classification as some of them exhibited a similar behavior, as shown by hierarchical clustering based on PARAFAC components.

Preliminary kinetic evaluation of an immobilized polysaccharide sub-2μm column using a low dispersion supercritical fluid chromatograph

The performance of a 3×50mm, 1.6μm d_p column with an immobilized polysaccharide stationary phase (ChiralPak IA-U) was evaluated for efficiency, and pressure drop, with respect to flow rate and modifier concentration using supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). This appears to be the first such report using such a column in SFC. A unique low dispersion (ultra-high performance) SFC was used for the evaluation. The minimum reduced plate height of 2.78, indicates that the maximum efficiency was similar to or better than coated polysaccharide columns. Selectivity was different from ChiralPak AD, with the same chiral selector, as reported by many others. At high flows and high methanol concentrations, pump pressures sometimes approached 600bar. With 5% methanol, pressure vs. flow rate was non-linear suggesting turbulent flow in the connector tubing. The optimum flow rate (F_opt) at 40% methanol was ≈0.8mL/min, where the column efficiency was highest. At 5% methanol, F_opt increased to ≈1.6mL/min, but efficiency degraded noticeably. The differences in F_opt suggests that the solute diffusion coefficients are a strong function of modifier concentration. Several sub-1min separations, including a 7.5s separation, are presented.

Evaluation of an amide-based stationary phase for supercritical fluid chromatography

A relatively new stationary phase containing a polar group embedded in a hydrophobic backbone (i.e., ACE®C18-amide) was evaluated for use in supercritical fluid chromatography. The amide-based column was compared with columns packed with bare silica, C18 silica, and a terminal-amide silica phase. The system was held at supercritical pressure and temperature with a mobile phase composition of CO2 and methanol as cosolvent. The linear solvation energy relationship model was used to evaluate the behavior of these stationary phases, relating the retention factor of selected probes to specific chromatographic interactions. A five-component test mixture, consisting of a group of drug-like molecules was separated isocratically. The results show that the C18 -amide stationary phase provided a combination of interactions contributing to the retention of the probe compounds. The hydrophobic interactions are favorable; however, the electron donating ability of the embedded amide group shows a large positive interaction. Under the chromatographic conditions used, the C18 -amide column was able to provide baseline resolution of all the drug-like probe compounds in a text mixture, while the other columns tested did not.

Kinetic performance of a 50mm long 1.8μm chiral column in supercritical fluid chromatography

Reduced plate heights (hr) of <2 were observed for the first time during the chiral separation of enantiomers, on sub-2μm particles with supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). The enantiomers of trans-stilbene oxide, were separated on a 4.6×50mm, 1.8μm R,R-Whelk-O1 column, with hr as low as 1.93. The plumbing of a commercial SFC instrument was modified to create a low dispersion version. Without the modification performance was considerably worse. vanDeemter like plots of reduced plate height vs. flow rate, for trans-stilbene oxide, indicate that the optimum flow varied with% modifier. On a 4.6×250mm, 5μm R,R- Whelk-O1 column, the optimum flow was >4mL/min for 5% methanol in CO2, decreasing to <2mL/min for 40% methanol (more than a factor of 2). For a 4.6×50mm column packed with 1.8μm particles the optimum appeared to be near, or >5mL/min with 2.5%, 5%, and 10% methanol, decreasing to between 3 and 3.5mL/min at 40% methanol. This is the first time such shifts have been characterized. Since the solutes were the same in all cases, the differences are likely due to changes in solute diffusion coefficients caused by changes in modifier concentration, and pressure. Pump pressure requirements sometimes exceeded 500bar. It is shown that a 5mL/min flow rate is inadequate for use with 1.8μm particles in a 4.6mm ID column format. Instead, it is suggested to decrease the ID of the column to 3mm, where the optimum flow rates are on the order of 2mL/min with decreased tubing variance. Nevertheless, a number of sub-1min chromatograms are presented.