Minimizing ultraviolet noise due to mis-matches between detector flow cell and post column mobile phase temperatures in supercritical fluid chromatography: effect of flow cell design.

A mis-match between the post-column mobile phase temperature and the UV detector flow cell temperature can cause significant UV noise in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). Deviations as little as 5 °C can increase noise as much as 5 times, making the detector unsuited for trace analysis. Two approaches were used to minimize this noise. When a flow cell was in direct thermal contact (metal on metal) with the detector optical bench, the mobile phase temperature was actively controlled to the measured flow cell temperature, by using one of the heat exchangers (HX) in the column compartment. However, with some older, but still widely used flow cell designs, this required repeated, hourly monitoring of the flow cell temperature and repeated manual adjustment of the heat exchanger temperature, due to thermal drift. Flow cell design had a strong influence on susceptibility to this thermally induced noise. Thermally insulating the flow cell from the optical bench made some cells much less susceptible to such thermally induced noise. Five different flow cells, some insulated, some un-insulated, were evaluated. Most had a truncated conical flow path, but one had a cylindrical flow path. Using either approach, the ASTM noise, with a 10mm, 13 μL conical flow cell, could be optimized to ≈0.007 mAU at 2.5 Hz, in SFC, which is very near the 0.006 mAU manufacturer's specification for HPLC. The insulated version of this flow cell required far less optimization, compared to the un-insulated version. At 150 bar, an experimental 3mm, 2 μL flow cell, with only one side insulated, yielded noise slightly too high (≈0.16-0.18 mAU) for trace analysis, at 80 Hz. However, at 200 bar, noise at 80 Hz was <0.06 mAU, which should allow quantification of a 1 mAU tall trace component with a signal to noise ratio (S/N) >10. Even partially un-insulated, this flow cell design was much less susceptible to thermally induced noise. Further insulating this flow cell design failed to improve performance.

Berger TA 《-》

Minimizing UV noise in supercritical fluid chromatography. I. Improving back pressure regulator pressure noise.

Pressure fluctuations and resulting refractive index changes, induced by the back pressure regulator (BPR) can be a significant source of UV detector noise in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). The refractive index (RI) of pure carbon dioxide (CO(2)) changes ≈0.2%/bar at the most commonly used conditions in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) (40 °C and 100 bar), compared to 0.0045%/bar for water (CO(2) IS 44× worse). Changes in RI cause changes in the focal length of the detector cell which results in changes in UV intensity entering the detector. The change in RI (ΔRI/bar) of CO(2) decreases 8-fold at 200 bar, compared to 100 bar. A new back pressure regulator (BPR) design representing an order of magnitude improvement in the state of the art is shown to produce peak to peak pressure noise (PN(p-p)) as low as 0.1 bar, at 200 bar, and 20Hz, compared to older equipment that attempted to maintain PN(p-p)<1bar, at <5Hz. With this lower PN(p-p), changes in baseline UV offsets could be measured as a function of very small changes in pressure. A pressure change of ±1 bar at 100 bar, common with some older BPR's, produced a UV baseline offset >0.5 mAU. A pressure change of ±0.5 bar representing the previous state-of-the-art, resulted in a UV offset of 0.3m AU. Baseline noise <0.05 is required to validate methods for trace analysis. The new BPR, with a PN(p-p) of 0.1 bar, demonstrated UV peak to peak noise (N(p-p))<0.02 mAU with a >0.03 min (10Hz) electronic filter under some conditions. This new low noise level makes it possible to validate SFC methods for the first time.

Berger TA ，Berger BK 《-》

A chemometric approach to elucidate the parameter impact in the hyphenation of evaporative light scattering detector to supercritical fluid chromatography.

The aim of this work was to elucidate the effects of parameters influencing the evaporative light scattering detector (ELSD) response when it was coupled to supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). Phthalates, currently used as plasticizers in medical devices, were selected as model compounds. The configuration of the hyphenation setup was firstly optimized and shown that both peak efficiency and sensitivity were improved by connecting the ELSD to the SFC before the back pressure regulator (BPR). By using a tee-junction which splits the flow after the PDA towards the collect fraction (or waste) and the ELSD, this instrument configuration has the advantage to be applicable for small-scale preparative SFC. The impacts of other parameters such as mobile phase composition and flow rate, outlet pressure, column oven temperature and ELSD drift tube temperature on the ELSD signal were evaluated using a chemometric approach. First, it was demonstrated that a classical mobile phase composed of CO2-methanol 90:10 (v/v) was suitable to obtain great nebulization efficiency. The flow rate of the eluent was the second main effect factor. The setting must be as low as possible to avoid the loss of large particle size in the drift tube resulting in a loss of signal intensity. Concerning the outlet pressure, the configuration of the setup between SFC and ELSD requires a setting as high as possible to limit the partial liquid-vapor separation of the mobile phase in the restrictor tube. Finally, due to the low quantity of solvent which must be evaporated in the detector, a drift tube temperature of 25 °C is suitable for the hyphenation of ELSD to SFC. In the optimized conditions, the proposed SFC/ELSD method could be suitable to quantify plasticizers in medical devices.

Lecoeur M ，Simon N ，Sautou V ，Decaudin B ，Vaccher C ，ARMED study group ... -  《-》

Effect of the thermal environment on the efficiency of packed columns in supercritical fluid chromatography.

When a packed column is operated at temperatures and pressures near the critical point in supercritical fluid chromatography, the thermal environment in which it is placed has a significant impact on retention and efficiency. We measured the retention factors, plate heights, and related parameters for elution of a test mixture of alkylbenzenes with 5% methanol/95% carbon dioxide mobile phase on a 250 mm × 4.6 mm i.d. column packed with 5-micron Luna-C18 particles. Separations were performed at outlet pressures from 100 to 150 bar and a column oven temperature of 323K. For a bare column thermostated with convective air, significant efficiency losses were observed for outlet pressures equal to or less than 120 bar. These large efficiency losses are attributed to radial temperature gradients. Addition of foam insulation resulted in significant improvements in efficiency. Operating the column in still air using a commercially available column heater provided the best overall performance, with no measurable efficiency loss over the entire range of pressures studied. A reduced plate height of 1.88 was obtained at an optimum flow rate of 3.0 mL/min at 100 bar outlet pressure and with the temperature of the incoming mobile phase set approximately 2.3K above the temperature of the column oven. Retention time repeatability for all three thermal conditions was equal to or less than 0.5% RSD. These results demonstrate that it is possible to perform fast, efficient separations with excellent repeatability using SFC under near-critical conditions if the thermal environment is optimized to minimize the generation of radial temperature gradients.

Zauner J ，Lusk R ，Koski S ，Poe DP ... -  《-》

Maximizing performance in supercritical fluid chromatography using low-density mobile phases.

The performance of a 3.0mm×150mm column packed with 1.8μm fully porous HSS-SB-C18 particles was investigated in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) with low-density, highly expansible carbon dioxide. These conditions are selected for the analysis of semi-volatile compounds. Elevated temperatures (>100°C) were then combined with low column back pressures (<100bar). In this work, the inlet temperature of pure carbon dioxide was set at 107°C, the active back pressure regulator (ABPR) pressure was fixed at 100bar, and the flow rate was set at 2.1mL/min at 12°C (liquefied carbon dioxide) and at an inlet column pressure close to 300bar. Nine n-alkylbenzenes (from benzene to octadecylbenzene) were injected under linear (no sample overload) conditions. The severe steepness of the temperature gradients across the column diameter were predicted from a simplified heat transfer model. Such conditions dramatically lower the column performance by affecting the symmetry of the peak shape. In order to cope with this problem, three different approaches were experimentally tested. They include (1) the decoupling and the proper selection of the inlet eluent temperature with respect to the oven temperature, (2) the partial thermal insulation of the column using polyethylene aerogel, and (3) the application of a high vacuum (10-5Torr provided by a turbo-molecular pump) in a housing chamber surrounding the whole column body. The results reveal that (1) the column efficiency can be maximized by properly selecting the difference between the eluent and the oven temperatures, (2) the mere wrapping of the column with an excellent insulating material is insufficient to fully eliminate heat exchanges by conduction and the undesirable radial density gradients across the column i.d., and (3) the complete thermal insulation of the SFC column under high vacuum allows to maximize the column efficiency by maintaining the integrity of the peak shape.

Gritti F ，Fogwill M ，Gilar M ，Jarrell JA ... -  《-》