Agilent HFIPgel Columns

Improved performance when using HFIP

• Optimized separation range delivers high performance with no artifacts
• Highly durable packing prolongs column lifetime
• Low operating pressure reduces system wear and unnecessary downtimes

Hexafluoroisopropanol (HFIP) is used as a solvent in GPC for the analysis of important industrial polymers such as polyesters, polyamides and polylactide/glycolide copolymers. For greatly improved performance in extremely polar solvents such as HFIP and trifluoroethanol, Agilent has developed novel "multipore" technology to produce PL HFIPgel, a PS/DVB packing featuring a monodisperse particle size, high pore volume and high resolution. Using PL HFIPgel avoids issues associated with conventional packing and HFIP, such as excessive curvature of calibration curves, dislocations/shoulders on peaks for polydisperse samples and poor resolution in the low MW region.

Column efficiency is typically >30,000 plates/meter and the columns are very durable, with a maximum operating pressure of 145 bar (2030 PSI). They are packed and tested in methanol, but shipped ready to use in HFIP.

PL HFIPgel columns with 7.5 mm ID normally operate at 1 mL/min. However, the 4.6 mm ID columns run at 0.3 mL/min, providing a 70% reduction in solvent consumption with savings in the cost of buying and disposing of solvents.

Tech Tip: Sharp peaks at the front end of GPC/SEC chromatograms (high molecular weight) indicate the sample may be excluding and a column set with a higher resolving range may be required.