Biotage®, a pioneer in Flash Purification, launched the unique, removable cap SNAP flash chromatography columns in 2007. This beneficial column design feature continues with the newest Biotage flash columns named Sfär columns.
How many ways can you load sample on your column?
May 31, 2019 at 4:02 PM / by Raffaella Bombarda
Various flash chromatography sample loading options are available including liquid and dry loading. Choosing the right technique is important because your sample loading choices (sample solvent and dry load sorbent), can have a major impact on the results.
In this post, I compare the two techniques and show the benefits dry loading with a form of diatomaceous earth can bring to your purification.
How can I perform normal-phase and reversed-phase column chromatography on one flash system?
May 20, 2019 at 2:21 PM / by Bob Bickler
For chemists, flash chromatography is part of their everyday synthesis workflow. For most syntheses, crude reaction mixtures are purified by normal-phase (aka adsorption) chromatography. There are times, however, where the crude mixture’s complexity and polarity make normal-phase chromatography very challenging. For these situations, reversed-phase (aka partition) chromatography may be a preferred option.
Can reversed-phase flash chromatography purify better than normal-phase?
May 9, 2019 at 4:44 PM / by Bob Bickler
The answer to this question is yes, reversed-phase can sometimes provide a better separation and thus better purification than normal-phase. When is reversed-phase likely to be the better choice is a different, and likely better, question.
In this post I will try to demonstrate when reversed-phase is likely the better purification mode.
How can I reduce flash column purification time and cost?
May 8, 2019 at 2:57 PM / by Bob Bickler
This is a question being asked of my colleagues and me more and more frequently, especially in pharma accounts. Why? Well, you are familiar with the adage – Time is Money, right. Well this really applies to them. A new molecular entity (NME) created as a pharmaceutical can take up to a decade and a billion dollars to bring to market. Granted, the biggest costs are in the clinical trials but the synthetic route and the time to discover and make the compound – and purify it – plays a major role within drug discovery and development. This timeline is not helped by the ever increasingly difficult-to-synthesize compounds being investigated as drug candidates today.
With that in mind, this post focuses on ways to speed the purification process without sacrificing purity and yield.
Determining solvent strength in flash column chromatography
May 7, 2019 at 5:23 PM / by Bob Bickler
Recently, one of our readers wrote and asked how to determine solvent strength in normal-phase flash chromatography. This is an excellent question because solvent strength is one of several factors impacting flash chromatography performance.
In this post I will explain how solvent strength can easily be determined.
How do particle size and flow rate affect normal-phase flash column chromatography
May 7, 2019 at 5:19 PM / by Bob Bickler
Media particle size and solvent flow rate play major roles in chromatographic separations including flash purification. This is true in both reversed-phase chromatography (aka partition chromatography) as well as normal-phase chromatography. The roles played are related to the overall compound mass-transfer kinetics and diffusion/dispersion as they migrate through the column. Smaller particles reduce sample dilution by reducing interstitial volume, while flow rate impacts the ability of molecules to efficiently pass through the porous particles. In this post, I will show how both particle size and flow rate impact flash chromatography.