Rational use of existing and new methodologies in separation techniques

Separation technology contains a number of techniques, as for instance High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Capillary Electrophoresis (CE), which are widely used in pharmaceutical and chemical analysis. Constantly, new developments are introduced in the different techniques. For example, new types of stationary phases for HPLC are developed, new chiral selectors for chiral separations in CE are synthesized and of the frequently used stationary phases the number of different brands on the market is about 600, having very different selectivities, which makes the selection of an appropriate column not obvious. Also on the level of the techniques themselves new developments emerge. For instance, a tendency can be observed on the one hand to miniaturize the techniques (e.g. development of Shear-driven Chromatography, SDC) and on the other to reduce the analysis time (e.g. by using short HPLC columns). Shear-driven Chromatography (SDC), is based on the use of chromatographic columns with a flat-rectangular cross-section, and consisting out of two, non-attached parts: one part carrying a stationary phase layer and kept immobilized during the operation, and a second part which moves relative to the stationary part. It is the aim of the project to examine the applicability and the rational use of a number of those new developments. The main focus of the project is the potential use of macrocycles in separation technology, e.g. in CE and HPLC. They will be chemically bound to a silica support to form a stationary phase that will be applied both in HPLC and SDC, while in CE they will be used as such in the running buffer.