Agilent Technologies Introduces Supercritical Fluid Chromatography System

The new Agilent 1200 Series Analytical SFC System delivers a breakthrough tenfold increase in sensitivity compared to existing SFC solutions. This increase is achieved by combining Aurora SFC Fusion A5 and Agilent solvent delivery systems to deliver carbon dioxide flow with the same pulseless precision as is achieved for water and organic solvent. A dynamic range greater than 20,000 allows researchers to measure enantiomeric excess and quantify impurities that are 0.05 percent of the main peak. Carbon dioxide-based mobile phase diffusion rates enable high-resolution and ultrafast separations at moderate operating pressures, using conventional size columns.

In addition to the tenfold sensitivity improvement, the Agilent 1200 Series Analytical SFC System also costs from one-tenth to one-fifteenth of existing systems to operate because it uses standard-grade carbon dioxide instead of highly expensive liquid SFC grade carbon dioxide. Moreover, very low solvent consumption is environmentally friendly.

SFC can be three to five times faster than HPLC; it's an ideal match for small drug-like molecules; and it should be the method of choice for chiral separations, said Dr. Terry Berger, founder and chief scientist of Aurora SFC Systems. Agilent worked closely with us to bring these and many more advantages to the marketplace.

We're very pleased to be working with Aurora to help make this exciting technology accessible to the pharmaceutical community and other scientists needing to detect trace amounts of chiral compounds and measure enantiomeric excess, said Stefan Schuette, Agilent senior marketing director, Liquid Chromatography Business. SFC can now be considered a seamless extension of HPLC.

The Aurora SFC Fusion A5 connects to the Agilent 1200 RRLC System, combining the robustness, reliability and performance of Agilent's LC technology with the enhanced speed, resolution and sensitivity of SFC. Installation is completely reversible, so the Agilent instrument can still be used in RRLC configuration.

SFC is similar to normal phase HPLC, but most of the mobile phase is replaced by liquid carbon dioxide. Much higher flow rates are achieved with proportional increases in numbers of samples that can be run per shift, and associated cost savings.