PF 2012

Finally! A blog update. After almost six months I have something to tell. Even though only shortly. I am going to describe my past chromatographic months in one of the next posts. Until then, I would like to wish you nice year 2012 and especially good health. Everything else will come along.

HPLC 2011

Last year, I summarized my HPLC 2010 notes after the meeting. This year I would like to share with you a list of talks I am going to see. If you like, you might share your favorite talks presented on HPLC 2011 (link to program at HPLC2011.com).

Sunday – Opening Ceremony

No discussion. You have to be there and not only because there is welcome reception after that. I am looking forward to seeing both presenters: G. Guiochon and A. Perczel.

Monday

Again – (almost) mandatory plenary lectures (Gy. Vigh, G. Bonn and M. Mobidelli). After that I am going to see section focused on Particle technology with keynote lecture by F. Gritti. J. Omamogho won last year Csaba Horvath Award and I still remember his talk and nice results. I am curious what kind of talk it will be this year. Than I will probably move to Proteomics where Bas Eeltink (my former colleague from Amsterdam) is going to talk about potential of polymer monoliths in analysis of proteins isoforms. On the end again Particle technology and T. Farkas with talk about core-shell particles.

After lunch it is In memory of Uwe Neue (talks of W. Lindner, T. Walter, and M. Gilar) with transfer to Electrodriven methods where I want to see Csaba Horvath Award nominee J. Chin.

Tuesday

Almost the same situation as during Monday’s afternoon – session dedicated to the memory of Csaba Horvath with only one exception which is my colleague drom Pardubice Michal Holčapek in Metabolomics session (and I am still thinking about keynote lecture in Metabolomics presented by R. Kennedy).

Column technology it is after that with two Award nominees (M. Abi Jaoudé and Ivo Nischang) where I am very curious about my former Berkeley’s colleague Ivo’s  presentation.

Chemometrics with Microfluidics. First I would like to either J. Kutter talk about carbon nanotube based columns or Y. Vander Heyden talk about experimental design, I don’t know which one yet. Then it will be S. Fanali with monolithic frits in Microfluidcs and J. Boccard and P. Boswell as Award nominees in Chemometrics.

Wednesday

On Wednesday morning I would like to start with purification and characterization of large biomolecules topic presented by A. Jungbauer in Biopharmaceuticals and then move to Retention mechanism for talks by B. Buszewski, G. Desmet, and (Award nominee) S. Bruns.

I am not sure what presentations I am going to see during the second morning session, but it would probably be P. Haddad with recent advances in ion chromatography, V. Kertész with laser ablation and/or G. Dicinoski with talk about chromatography in the prevent acts of terrorism. The talks by U. Tallarek, A. Cavazzini and M. Trudgett will follow.

Thursday

E. Hilder with monoliths, J. Griffith with porous graphitic carbon and E. Uliyanchenko (Award nominee) with fast 2D UHPLC of polymers. All in section Advances in separation technology.

Then, there is no room for anything else than Stationary phases section. I would like to see talk of my boss Pavel Jandera in Multidimensional separations, but I have to be ready for my talk in my section (I would really appreciate if you come and see talk about hypercrosslinked monoliths).

After that I am sure I can really enjoy lunch and plenary lectures presented by P. Schoenmakers (it will be very nice and funny talk, as always), by Frantisek Svec (hyphenation of hypercrosslinked monoliths and NMR to get image of flow inside the column and to detect very fast separations of small molecules) and G. Xu about metabolomics.

And then? Closing ceremony and evening’s train back home.

As I said, I would love to read your pre-selected talks and, additionally, if you are going to be in Budapest and want to talk to me, look for a badge with Jiri Urban on it ;)

International Science Olympiad for high school students from 20 European countries. One particular example in an analytical chemistry part focuses on the iodometric titration with 3 maximum available points. The organizers decided to use “all or nothing” approach. Either you have a correct result with maximum points or you have made (even very small) mistake and there are no points for you. Nothing. Zero. For all teams.

As a member of organizers, I have attended the final discussion between the organizers and mentors from other teams. We have compared and discussed the results each team achieved and tried to find an agreement in number of points.

There was only one big problem – the above example.

The sentence I have used as a title for this post arose from a discussion with the most dissatisfied mentors’ team. How do you want to distinguish between a student with correct way of thinking vs. the guy who knows nothing?

I tried to explain our point of view. If you are going to work in an analytical chemistry lab no one will ask you about the way how you have reached the result. Only the correct answer counts. Incorrect result = no money/no promotion/… .

On the other hand, these guys are (high school) students. Best out of the best, but still students. There should be (some) incentive reward for the guy who knows what he is doing.

So, as you see there are valid arguments on both sides. I am still thinking of it and really can’t decide which approach is better.

Now, as time goes, I am slightly more convinced that there should be partial points for this example.

And what do you think?

Last year, I tried to use “chromatographic” New Year’s greeting for first time. It was kind of easy.

This year, I would like to continue with this tradition and – additionally to strip presented below – I would like to wish you good health and welfare in the upcoming year. May the bad stuff from 2010 end and good persit.

Pick a good resolution for 2011

]]> http://www.chromatographer.com/pf-2011/feed/ 0 http://www.chromatographer.com/my-hplc-books/ http://www.chromatographer.com/my-hplc-books/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 03:28:06 +0000 Jiri Urban http://www.chromatographer.com/?p=888 Today, I would like to describe my favorite chromatographic books: from one I bought even before I (really) knew what chromatography is to one which has chapter with my name on it. Úvod do vysokoúčinné kapalinové kolonové chromatografie I am sorry to all of you who does not understand Czech language. This is my very [...]]]>

Today, I would like to describe my favorite chromatographic books: from one I bought even before I (really) knew what chromatography is to one which has chapter with my name on it.

Úvod do vysokoúčinné kapalinové kolonové chromatografie

My very first HPLC book

I am sorry to all of you who does not understand Czech language. This is my very first chromatographic book and I bought it even before I knew the term “chromatography” itself. The book was written by prof. Jandera and prof. Churacek and the name of the book in English means “Introduction to high performance liquid column chromatography“. The book was published in 1984.

It was on the end of my first year at university. I walked aimlessly through the library shop and in the corner I found shelf full of these books. They were already a little bit damaged and each one of them costs less than a big beer (which is actually the cheapest drink you can get in almost any restaurant in Czech Republic). I had no idea what chromatography means, who are the authors and what is going to be my main direction during years at university. So I bought it.

In couple of months I met chromatography again – during our analytical chemistry II lessons. In that time, I started slowly eplore the beauty of (liquid) chromatography separations and moved my attention from analysis of biological materials (which was my main direction) towards analytical chemistry itself and particularly liquid chromatography.

Later on, I was lucky enough to be part of the class when founder of chromatography techniques in Czech Republic – Prof. Churacek – gave  lessons during his last year before retirement. So there is no surprise, that I asked Prof. Jandera if there is a space for me in his group – there was and since then I am part of his group at University of Pardubice, Czech Republic.

And the book I am talking about now was always with me, whenever I was working with chromatography abroad.

Actually, I have it on my desk even now.

HPLC Columns: Theory, Technology, and Practice

HPLC Columns

My second HPLC book in the list is HPLC Columns: Theory, Technology, and Practice written by Uwe Neue. This book describes thoroughly a theory of chromatography, columns packing, characterization, chemistry, selection, and maintenance. Large part of the book is devoted to individual modes of liquid chromatography, such as normal and reversed-phase, size-exclusion, hydrophilic interaction, and ion-exchange chromatography.

I still remember reading the parts about methacrylate-based packing, few paragraphs about monolithic stationary phases (page 72;) and trying to dip more and more in a liquid chromatography techniques and separations. Sweet first year of my PhD.

What I especially like on Uwe Neue’s book is its easy to read style and the way how he explains the problem. Reading the book I have feeling that I am on his lecture or (even better) listening to him.

Monolithic Materials: Preparation, Properties, and Applications

Bible of monoliths. Ok, let’s at least call it a fundamental book in area monolithic stationary phases edited by Frantisek Svec, Tatiana Tennikova and Zdenek Deyl. It took me while before I was able to look inside this very first book describing preparation, characterization and application of continuous porous stationary phases. Finally, I was able to borrow it from library of Eindhoven’s Technical University during my stay there. I immediately made a copy of first chapters focusing on organic polymer monoliths and read them the same evening.

There are two big advantages of this book: First, it was first. I don’t think I have to write more about it. Secondly, it describes the monolithic stationary phase from A to B. There is a description of all main types of monoliths, their preparation techniques, properties, and characterization: organic polymer-based monoliths, silica-based monoliths, ring-opening metathesis polymerization, water-soluble monomers-based monoliths,  polysaccharide materials, and high internal phase  emulsion materials, just to name a few.

Moreover, application description spans from separation of small molecules, through peptides and proteins to DNA and large polymer standards.

If you are new in a field of monolithic stationary phases, this book gives you nice overview of possible materials and their application in the separation you need.

Introduction to Modern Liquid Chromatography

Introduction to modern liquid chromatography

3rd edition of this introduction with almost 900 hundred pages covers probably all possible questions about theory of liquid chromatography and its application. Authors Lloyd R. Snyder, Joseph J. Kirkland and John W. Dolan focus on theory, instrumentation (detection, column, troubleshooting), method development and validation, and sample preparation. Of course, there is a deep description of individual modes of liquid chromatography, as in the case of Uwe Neue’s book: normal phase, reversed-phase, ion-exchange, size-exclusion, chiral separations, and preparative chromatography.

Individual chapters are divided according the type of sample and/or technique used. So, for example, you can find information about hydrophilic interaction chromatography (HILIC) as a part of chapter Normal phase chromatography as well as Separation of peptides and proteins.

Monolithic Chromatography and its Modern Applications

Monolithic chromatography

Reading all these books I always thought Maybe once I can have a chapter in such a book. And it happened. Roughly three years ago editor Perry Wang contacted Pavel Jandera with question about his contribution to book about monolithic stationary phases and its modern applications. We extended our review about polymethacrylate monoliths dedicated to Frantisek Svec on the occasion of his birthday and prepared chapter for forthcoming book.

In comparison to the first book I mentioned couple of paragraphs ago, this one does not cover such a broad range of different monolithic materials. It describes organic polymers, as well as silica-based monoliths, further ring-opening metathesis polymerization and monolithic cryogel beds.

The description of analysis of pharmaceutical-, ionic-, and phytochemicals, amino acids, and DNA and viruses separations is in an application part of the book.

I am especially looking forward to reading chapter about hyphenation of monolithic columns with chemiluminescence detection, because it reminds me time I spent in Paris working with supercritical fluid chromatography and chemiluminescence detection in analysis of crude oil residuals.

The book is now available for pre-order on amazon, it should be published very soon published.

What are your favorite books about chromatography?

When two do the same thing, it’s not always the same. In the last issue of LCGC North America, Ronald Majors summarized his highlights of HPLC 2010. In my HPLC 2010 flashbacks I focused exclusively on oral presentations I have attended during the meeting. Ronald Majors summarized whole symposium in a detailed and comprehensive way, including the comparison of attendance this year vs. last year, percentage distribution of individual topics, as well as plenary lectures, major applications and usage of various detection techniques.

I am not going to repeat what was written. You can read Ronald Majors’s paper yourself (and maybe compare it with my HPLC 2010 flashbacks). Majority of the meeting focused on HPLC (33% of all papers). In the group of HPLC presentations, 25% described news in the field of monolithic stationary phases (organic polymers vs. silica-based monoliths 2:1), 17% covered superficially porous particles (or shell particles, poroshell, fused-core particles), and 16% papers presented HILIC as a separation technique for polar compounds.

So, if you want to know what is going on in liquid chromatography separations, read HPLC 2010 highlights.

The Urbans on HPLC 2010

A little bit of shameless self-promotion. I am sorry about that ;-)

Ronald Majors mentioned recent progress in the field of monolithic stationary phases.  He describes both organic polymer monoliths and silica-based inorganic materials. In group of Frantisek Svec, we are preparing polymer monoliths suitable for separation of small molecules. To do that, we use postpolymerization hypercrosslinking modification to synthesize monolithic phase with small pores on the surface of monolithic skeleton. The paper describing our attempts is submitted. Once published, I will let you know for sure ;-)

Iva with winning poster and received diploma

Last but not least.

I already said it in my HPLC 2010 flashbacks, but now when it is published in LCGC it’s official even more: my wife Iva won a first prize poster for a work focusing on “Monolithic Polymer Layers for Separation of Peptides and Oligonucleotides Using Pressurized Planar Electrophoresis and Electrochromatography“. The work has been done in cooperation with University of Indiana, Purdue and authors recently published Letter in Analytical Chemsitry.

I am proud of her.

End of self-promotion, thanks for your patience ;-)

Couple of days ago I wrote about September Discussion group organized by CASSS International separation science society. As I promised I made notes and I would like to share them with you now.

Although I expected slightly different format of meeting (selection of few topics and their detailed discussion with the attendants) I was able to find some new ideas and directions in current and future analytical chemistry.

The speakers (Robert Stevenson, Tom Jupille, and David Sparkman) presented their views about new directions in analytical chemistry, liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry.

Robert Stevenson – New technologies in analytical chemistry

Robert Stevenson started with the importance of semantic technologies and data processing and control. With emerging techniques more and more data is acquired and analyzed. In comparison to “regular” database with x and y coordinates, semantic analysis allows to add another flexible and dynamic dimension(s) using RDF framework.

Next, he focused on high content analysis – relatively young technique (6 – 7 years) connected mainly with fluorescence microscopy and further data analysis. Using this technique human stem cells can be tested and thus testing on animals avoided. The drawback is large data output and higher prize ($0.25/well and in usual experiment 10⁵ to 10⁷ wells is analyzed).

Software enabled microscopy was a last part of Robert Stevenson’s talk. With this approach correction of optical imperfection is done using software. Using this approach, fluorescent photo-activated localization microscopy enables imaging of DNA strains during the cell division. Unbelievable.

Tom Jupille – High performance liquid chromatography

Tom Jupille summarized history of liquid chromatography separation, which started in 1905 by Michael Tswett. There was not any giant step in the instrumental development during first fifty years. Columns in 1955 looked almost the same as those used by M. Tswett and used gravity as driving force for the mobile phase (although they were much bigger).

Oppositely, next 50 years changed the instrumentation completely. New techniques such as HPLC were introduced thanks to rapid development of a high quality engineering and computers technology. Then, instrumentation in 2005 looked like self-standing, robust, machines controlled with a PC producing hundreds and thousands results every day.

And 2055? Miniaturization and Black-boxes. Tom Jupille compared the evolution of chromatographic system to personal computers. Nowadays, only small group of people knows how computers work. Majority of people uses computers in their daily life but has no clue about bits, RAM or binary system.

HPLC systems

The same applies for chromatographic instruments. In the future, people are going to use LC system and they may not even notice using one. For them, it will be the only way how to reach a result– composition of the sample, level of compound of interest, sample preparation for further analysis and so on.

My (footnote) heretical question: is liquid chromatography sample preparation technique for mass spectrometry?

Future of HPLC instrument began with introduction of Dionex ICS 5000, which is a system with minimal extracolumn volumes and flexible and modular approach. In this I agree with Tom Jupille and his “As instruments evolve, they became appliances” statement. We as method development crowd should provide end-customer with required technology/instrument/column. And end-customer does not need to know value of efficiency at minimum of van Deemter curve.

Column development

The general trend in column development is reduction of particle size. From tens of micrometer on the beginning of HPLC history to current highly efficient sub 2 μm particles. The advent of ultra high pressure liquid chromatography (UPLC) is closely related to pressure issue of HPLC columns packed with small particles (high pressure is a prize for speed and efficiency).

The question is is there always need for very high efficient columns. No. We need resolution and selectivity (as Peter Schoenmakers mentioned during HPLC 2010 and Tom Jupille during his talk).

Another issue related to HPLC columns packed with very small particles is contribution of extracolumn volumes to a separation (I already mentioned it a bit). By reducing extracolumn volume you can very easily improve separation power of your HPLC system with very low or no additional cost. However, the sub 2 μm superficially porous particles are probably going to be future packing material.

Monoliths, on the other hand, have efficiency as 3 μm particles with back-pressure of particles with 10 – 15 μm. According Tom Jupille, they are not going to dominate over other separation materials mainly because of patent issues.

From my point of view, I see room for monoliths in special application using stationary phases tailored for certain separation problem with desired selectivity (as well as efficiency and back pressure). Another advantage of monoliths is easy preparation in special format of separation devices (lab on chip).

I believe that 2nd generation of organic polymer monoliths (hypercrosslinked materials) may contribute significantly as a new family of stationary phases. I call them superficially porous monoliths.

David Sparkman – Mass spectrometry as a separation technique

I had an opportunity to share a table with a last speaker – David Sparkman. He likes the Czech Republic, which he visited during an international conference a few years ago.
David Sparkman said that mass spectrometry can be considered as a separation tool since the beginning of this technique. Main improvement of MS detection is attributed to development of MS/MS detection in 1978 . Surprisingly, in 1990s the GC-MS technique almost disappeared.

Nowadays, the main driving forces in development of mass spectrometry instrumentation focus on tandem quadrupole arrangement and/or ion mobility mass spectrometry. In later case, the ions are separated not only using MS, but also according their different mobilities based on size, charge and so on.

During his talk David Sparkman described later development in the field of mass spectrometry instrumentation. He started with Waters Xero TQ with quadrupole – collision cell – quadrupole arrangement, which improve signal to noise ration and allows analysis of femtograms of sample.

AB/Sciex developed Triple TOF, which is NOT instrument with three time-of-flight analyzers, but it looks like the analysis is done using three TOF systems. Triple TOF uses 40 GHz time to digital detector which allows very high sensitivity and detection.

QIT (Thermo, I believe) is quadrupole – ion trap mass spectrometer with dual cell arrangement (low and high pressure) and shows very high resolution.

Because of time, David Sparkman only quickly mentioned other producers, such as Bruker and his maXis, Shimadzu with LCMS 8030 system or Agilent 6490 using jet-stream technology.

From chromatographic point of view, the most important characteristics for mass spectrometry are robustness, repeatability and reproducibility of chromatographic separation for subsequent analysis with mass spectrometry.

“If you do LC and don’t know MS you may be out in the cold” David Sparkman

Conclusion

During the discussion I have asked about the sample preparation. With decrease in time of anlysis (seconds, minutes) the importance of fast and robust sample preparation increases. If your analysis is 5 minutes, you don’t want to prepare your sample for one hour. According the panelist this topic needs special attention, however because of time they did not elaborate on this topic further.

I am glad to be here in Bay Area and attend such meetings. I believe that in the future CASSS Discussion groups can be webcasted on the internet (live or for download). Since then you need to trust me ;-)

I would be more than happy to discuss your opinion about future of analytical chemistry (and separation techniques in particular). Please feel free to comment on this article. If you prefer more open communication, you can use chromatographer.com facebook page.

In May, I announced that CASSS organizes a discussion group about consulting.

Today, I would like to mention next discussion group focused on New directions/developments in Separation Science.

The meeting is taking place on September 15th, 2010 in Woodfin Suites in Emeryville, CA at 6 pm.

Personally, I am looking forward to attending this meeting. The topic as well as a list of panelist (see below) are very interesting. It will be nice to hear opinions about new directions in separation science from people with different background and experience.

I have to admit that my knowledge, interest, and predictions focus mainly on liquid chromatography (and monoliths, of course;)  so I am very curious about other topics, such as sample preparation, miniaturization and/or new materials in separations, which are possibly going to be part of the discussion too (I don’t know, just guessing;)

The information from CASSS website

Today’s sophisticated separation and analytical instruments and techniques bear scant resemblance to the “absorption analysis” technique reported by M.S. Tswett in 1903.  But that same drive for innovation and improvement is alive and well in 2010.

Join us for a lively discussion on the latest trends and technical innovations presented at the Pittcon, ASMS and HPLC conferences this year.  Question our expert panelists on where the trends might be taking the industry - and what to watch out for.

One thing is constant in this field … change.  From mergers and acquisitions to plenty of new products – stay abreast of the trends that will affect you most.

Invited panlists

• Tom Jupille, LC Resources
• O. David Sparkman, University of the Pacific, Stockton
• Robert Stevenson, R. Stevenson Consulting

Registration starts at 5:30 p.m., dinner at 6:00 p.m., and Panel discussion at 7:00 p.m.

The prize for registration before Wednesday, September 8 is $35 for Discussion only and $49 for Discussion and Dinner. On-site registration are not eligible for dinner. More info on CASSS website.

Future post

I will try to remember (ie. make notes of;) discussed topics and possible conclusions and bring them to you here on chromatographer.com soon after the meeting. Keep in touch.

PS: if you would like to be informed about new posts, you might consider subscribtion to RSS chanel or email newsletter.

As I mentioned several weeks ago, there was an international symposium on the separation science – HPLC 2010 – held in Boston last week. It was my second North American conference (together with San Francisco 2006) and third in total (plus Stockholm 2005).

Allow me to summarize my remarks I made during the lectures I have attended. Fortunately, I have the opportunity to see majority of my pre-selected talks as a volunteer with the microphone in presentation halls.

This post is quite long. However, I didn’t want to chop it in several different posts rather to place all the information together. One more note: your selection (and conclusions) of talks can be completely different, I was mainly visiting sessions focusing on the new columns material, columns characterization and multidimensional techniques as well as monolithic stationary phases.

Sunday

Peter Carr in his plenary lecture awarded with a Martin Gold Medal of The Chromatographic Society described the advantages of the fast second dimension in two-dimensional comprehensive liquid chromatography (2D-LC). He compared time of 2D-LC analysis in 1990 (6 hours) with the current analysis time of twenty-thirty minutes with very fast second dimension (20 seconds!). The combination of perfluorated column together with zirconia type of the stationary phase seems to be satisfactory for several different applications of real samples from corn extract to Starbucks coffee or Minnesota’s red wine.

Short time travel: Peter’s lecture was next day followed by a 2D-LC tutorial led by Dwight R. Stoll. He focused on the necessity of the 2D-LC (is it really necessary and/or better?), column selection for multidimensional techniques and the biggest problem in the field of 2D-LC: lack of 2D instruments with very low gradient delay volume. He also focused on the fraction transfer and second dimension analysis time (why the 20 s looks like good compromise).

In the second plenary lecture, George M. Whitesides describes his efforts in preparation of no or low cost diagnostic tools. Nice talk. Why are we developing separation methods with the highest selectivity, capacity, retention, efficiency … when we are not able to provide their results for majority of people? I am sure symposium such as HPLC (2010) can significantly attribute to discussion like this.

Monday

Nobuo Tanaka introduced next generation of silica-based monolithic columns. Connecting several columns together (1 – 2 m) it is possible to achieve efficiency of several hundreds to million of plates. Moreover, the separation can be done at linear velocity as high as 11mm/s.

My colleague Stuart Chambers talked about the modification of the methacrylate-based monolithic columns with carbon nanotubes or methacrylate modified fullerenes. Surface modification significantly enhanced the column efficiency and values such as 80 000 tp/m for small molecule (benzene) can be achieved using this type of modification.

Ulrich Tallarek described mathematical approach towards the characterization of 3D structure of stationary phases. From my point of view, I am really looking forward to seeing such a model for organic polymer-based monoliths (taking into account their heterogeneity).

Fabrice Gritti discussed why the shell particles are so good and if there is still space for improvement? He described the mass transfer in these particles and compared several different types of the core-shell particles.

Tuesday

Wolfgang Lindner introduced new zwitterionic type of chiral stationary phase which can be used for both weak anion and strong cation exchange chromatography only by tuning the composition of the mobile phase.

Paola Dugo mentioned recent progress in comprehensive LC in the separation of small molecules (flavonoids) as well as larger ones (peptides).

My former boss from Pardubice, Czech Republic Pavel Jandera showed how to optimize gradients in 2D-LC. The gradients in the second dimension can be described as full in fraction (0 – 100%), segment in fraction (x – y%) and continuous shifting with separate run of gradient in second dimension. Optimization of the gradient in second dimension can be described as optimization of three separated steps – isocratic (dwell volume) – gradient – and isocratic again.

Matthew Lindford presented nanodiamond modified stationary phases. The diamond (nanoparticles) was attached to the impervious core using layer by layer addition using polyaminoallyl. These column show enhanced stability, as well as decent efficiency (55 000 tp/m).

Mary Wirth described submicron colloidal crystals nanoparticles packed in capillary format with submicron plate heights. This can be one of the new/next steps in the future of liquid chromatography – packing with ultra small particles and achieving ultrahigh column efficiency. However, the whole process has to be studied more deeply.

Gert Desmed asked where is ultrahigh pressure needed and if. The first part of his talk focused on the application of several connected column to provide the desired efficiency, whereas second one discussed the possibility of the gradients at constant pressure, which significantly speed up the separations (roughly about 10 – 20%).

Susan Olesik presented probably only one talk about the thin layer separations. She described the application of electrospinned polymer as stationary phase in TLC.

Peter Schoenmakers in his first talk (substituing his student Elena) introduced application of regular HPLC column for fast size-exclusion separation of polymers in UPLC mode in less than 1 min. In this case, the extracolumn volumes play very significant role and has to be minimize as much as possible.

Wednesday

Georges Guiochon has begun his talk with historical summary of core-shell type of the particles. Their superior performance is due to the reduced heat effect, short diffusion path and subsequently low contribution of A and C terms of van Deemter equation. The columns are getting smaller and smaller and therefore the role of the instrument is more and more important (why are you using highly efficient column if you are loosing all its performance in the extracolumn connections?). On the end of his talk Georges Guiochon pointed out the importance of column packing method and its quality.

Magdalena Titrici showed the possibility of the surface modification with either NIPAM or PEG-methacrylate based monomer to achieve a thermoresponsive stationary phase. With this kind of polymers the surface can be changed from highly hydrophilic to hydrophobic one.

I missed the beginning of talk of Marja-Liisa Riekkola, however on the very end of her talk she spoke about the capillary packed with very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) “particles”. I have to check this idea again because it looks very originally.

Jesse Omamogho described the new types of core-shell particles prepared using the seeded growth method. Using this technique they are able to control both the diameter of inner core as well as the thickness of the porous layer independently. The pore size of the particles is about 90 A with surface area from 80 to 200 m2/g. On the very end of the HPLC symposium, this talk won a first prize of the Csaba Horvath Award.

Charles Lucy discussed the influence of the stationary phase hydrophilicity on the retention and selectivity of the inorganic ions.

Uwe Neue described the selectivity of the new type of the stationary phases with controlled surface charge. He introduced plots/ways how to characterize column selectivity and how to compare it with other types of the columns.

James Jorgenson, father of ultra high pressure chromatography, spoke about the columns packed with 1 – 1.5 porous and non porous particles used at very high pressure. He studied the influence of the packing slurry solvent on the quality of the column. In the following discussion, Georges Guiochon compared chromatographic particle to the city: there are cities with a lot of gates and streets which make them very easy to enter. On the other hand, there are towns with only one gate and main street. Those are difficult to enter. The particles inside the column have a same “behavior” – either it is easy to enter them (core-shell) or it is difficult (e.g. fully porous).

Anthony Edge described the usage of graphitic column at high temperature with water as mobile phase.

David McCalley focused on the relationship between the applied pressure and compound retention together with molecular structure. Main influence of the analysis pressure on the retention can be observed for ionizable compounds.

Tivadar Farkas compared the influence of the extracolumn volume on the chromatographic behavior of core-shell highly efficient columns. He claimed that with current instrumentation we are not able to fully exploit potential of such columns.

Thursday

Kazuki Nakanishi described the preparation of silica-based monoliths with improved homogeneity of stationary phases enabling high efficient separations at low back pressure. Columns prepared according a new protocol contain only 5% of solid material. However, the disadvantage is their mechanical stability. Such column can be applied either in solid phase extraction or bioreactors.

Emily Hilder presented monoliths in planar format for dried blood spot sampling.

Brett Paul introduced the organic polymer monoliths prepared inside a 1 mm ID titan tubing. He described optimization of preparation together with first results. The column provide efficiency of 50 000 tp/m. Such column can be used at high analysis temperature, e.g. 180 °C.

Peter Schoenmakers continued with the ultra pressure size-exclusion chromatography topic. He focused on the degradation of very large polystyrene standards (> 7 MDa) at ultra high pressure. Further, he described separation of branched polymers using molecular topology fraction inside the monolithic stationary phases with very narrow flow-through pores. Peter correctly pointed out selectivity is one of the main property we should focus on. With very high and specific selectivity it is not necessary to require high efficiency, especially in case of very specific and tailored separations.

Robert Kennedy described in his plenary lecture segmented flow methods for hyphenation of LC and detection techniques, as well as their application in sample handling and tailored injection.

My current boss Frantisek Svec summarized the work of our group. He mentioned hypercrosslinking modification of organic polymer-based monoliths suitable for separation of small molecules (my work), as well as results of my colleagues with modification of the monolithic surface with carbon nanotubes (Stuart Chambers), gold (Yan Xu) and hydroxyapatite (Jana Krenkova) nanoparticles.

Atilla Felinger focused on the description of the thernodynamics and kinetics of solute transfer in HPLC. His very last talk at HPLC 2010 was “spiced” with the sudden technical problem with microphone. Fortunately, the organization team worked quickly and efficiently. As a very good chromatographic column ;-)

Conclusions

So, there are my HPLC 2010 flashbacks. In summary, my feelings are that the future of HPLC separation lies between superficially porous core-shell particles for fast and highly efficient separations and multidimensional techniques for complex samples. The monolithic stationary phases can still play significant role, especially 2nd generation of monoliths with tailored surface modification providing high selectivity for compound(s) of interest. Due to their thermal stability they can be also used at very high temperatures.

I would be more than happy to read your opinion either about HPLC 2010 or my notes.

Thanks for reading.

PS: and as a very last note: the poster of my wife about pressurized electrochromatography and electrophoresis on the thin layer monolithic plates for separation of peptides and oligonucleotides was awarded with the first prize in poster competition.

I am flying tomorrow to the Czech Republic. Two weeks of holiday. So, although I wasn’t updating this website frequently, I will have even less time now.  Shortly after my holiday starts the most important chromatographic conference of a year – HPLC 2010 in Boston.

Let’s meet at the HPLC 2010 in Boston

I have the nice opportunity to be part of the volunteers team at this conference and I would be more than happy to meet you, my readers. If you are attending the conference and willing to meet me – just do it. Tug on my sleeve and stop me. Use secret password: chromatographer.com ;-)

Attending HPLC 2010? Tug on my sleeve and stop me

We can discuss the beauty of our chromatographic life or just chat about your or mine latest results.

Anyway, number of my poster is P-1501-M and I have been assigned to the Poster Session on Monday (June 21st) from 2:45 to 4:30pm.

I will be showing results of fast and efficient separation of small molecules on hypercrosslinked monolithic stationary phases.

Looking forward to meeting you in Boston ;-)