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.

But, if you have only one flash system available, can you, should you, and how do you efficiently switch from non-polar, normal-phase solvents to polar, reversed-phase solvents – and back again without issues? In this post I'll attempt to shed some light on the topic.

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.

Reversed-phase flash chromatography usage is increasing rapidly. In fact, over the past 10 or so years, reversed-phase flash chromatography use has increased a dramatic 650%! This is amazing growth despite the fact that reversed-phase flash columns are considerably more expensive than silica columns and you need to evaporate water from your fractions. So, what’s driving this change in chemists’ modus operandi?

In this post, I will explain why chemists are increasingly using reversed-phase flash chromatography for routine, intermediate, and final compound purification and provide and example as well.