Proteomics/Protein Separations - Chromatography/Ultra Performace Liquid Chromatography

Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography
High performance liquid chromatography has proven itself to very useful in many scientific fields, yet forces scientists to consistently choose between speed and resolution. Ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) eliminates the need to choose and creates a highly efficient method that is primarily based on small particle separations.

Waters ACQUITY Ultra Performance LC systems have been developed to take into account all the advantages that small particle separations currently have over HPLC. Many of these advantages are primarily based on the theories behind liquid chromatography. In general, increasing the efficiency of a separation will also increase its resolution. Since both efficiency and optimum flow rate are inversely proportional to particle size, a decrease in the particle size will increase efficiency and speed up the flow rate.

In the ACQUITY system, the particle size is decreased to 1.7um compared to 3.5um or 5um. The particles were specifically designed to withstand wide ranges of pressure and pH, have a high load capacity, and improve efficiency. Other innovations to the chromatography method include a high pressure solvent delivery system, to take into account the smaller particle size, fast injection cycle sample management, and specialized detectors with fiber optic flow cell design.

Resources

 * 1) Waters - Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography
 * 2) Waters - UPLC New Boundaries For The Chromatography Laboratory