The Chromatography Forum

of Delaware Valley

Efforts to model and simulate various aspects of liquid chromatography (LC) separations (e.g., retention, selectivity, peak capacity, injection breakthrough) depend on experimental retention measurements to use as the basis for the models and simulations. Often these modeling and simulation efforts are limited by datasets that are too small because of the cost (time and money) associated with making the measurements. Other groups have demonstrated improvements in throughput of LC separations by focusing on “overhead” associated with the instrument itself – for example, between-analysis software processing time, and autosampler motions. In our wikiChrom Project we are focused on improving the throughput of retention measurements such that datasets of hundreds of thousands of measurements can be made on a practical timescale (e.g., a few years). In this presentation I will describe our approach, which is focused on the use of low volume columns operated at high flow rates, as well as instrumentation and informatics infrastructure that enable the approach. With about 75,000 measurements in-hand, we have made several important observations that both help to set expectations regarding the characteristics of the data, and guide refinement of the platform as we continue making measurements into the future. This approach significantly increases the rate at which high quality retention data can be collected to thousands of measurements per instrument per day, which in turn will likely have a profound impact on the quality of models and simulations that can be developed for many aspects of LC separations. Finally, all of the data acquired as part of this project are freely available through a website dedicated to the project.