Applications and benefits of HPLC

Posted by samrojseo on April 27th, 2014

HPLC or High Performance Liquid Chromatography was developed to eliminate the shortcomings and limitations of standard liquid chromatography.  The separation was slow and driven by gravity. The need was felt to speed up the process without damaging the sample. The need was efficiently fulfilled by HPLC Column. These new columns could without high pressure which made it easy to force the mobile phase

through the column in much less time than before.  The basic component of a HPLC system includes solvent, a pump, sample injector, HPLC column, a detector and a computer to store the results.

Since, HPLC has emerged as a powerful tool in the analytical chemistry; these columns are in high demand in industries like food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, medicine and others.  The area of application of HPLC includes water purification, pre-concentration of trace components, Protein Purification, high pH anion exchange chromatography of carbohydrates and oligosaccharides and lots more. It is also used for chemistry and biochemistry research analyzing complex mixtures and purifying chemical compounds. Federal and state regulation authorities also make use of HPLC to survey food and drug products.

Every step in protein analysis from separation, identification, purification to quantification can be done easily with the help of HPLC. The column is packed with a stationery phase that binds the protein molecules on its surface. The mobile phase or solvent is then used to separate the desired protein on the basis of its charge or nature from the mixture and collected separately. The type of protein to be separated dictates the type of chromatography to be used. The column can be used for ion exchange, size exclusion, reversed-phase, hydrophobic interaction, and other separation modes. The difference lies in the type of packaging material and the solvent used in the column.

Silica gel or non-porous, meso porous or macro porous polymer beads may be used as the packaging material in the column. The greatest advantage of these columns is that these can be cleaned with solvents and reused. The whole process is easy and less laborious than the traditional chromatography techniques. The HPLC has revolutionized the research industry with better and faster results in biomolecule separation and purification.

The key benefit of HPLC system is that it controls and automates chromatography instruments. It has increased the efficiency of the researchers as well. Thus, the application of HPLC and its benefits are plenty and it is a powerful tool that can improve the quality of products in food and pharmaceutical industry. HPLC can be used in both qualitative and quantitative application that is for both compound identification and estimation. HPLC Columns today are easily available from some of the leading manufacturers in the laboratory equipment at highly competitive price.

BioChrom Labs, Inc. is providing valuable information of HPLC columns and their specifications. To visit their official website, please refer to www.biochrom.com to know more about Biocompatible Coating, Reversed Phase and Polymer beads.