[Wald_ron]

Hi,

I am an analytical student working on a presentation of the applications of supercritical fluids chromatography and I think that if I could add some material from someone with some direct experience I may be able to enhance my project.

   Simple things I would be interested in are:

1- Are they easy to use?

2- Any problems running them?

3- What sorts of instruments were you running tests with before SFC?

      3-b- A few words on the comparison of outputs between SFC and what you were    using prior

3-2- The industry you were working in

4- Limitations or user Frustrations , either fundamentally or instrumentally?

5- Limitations on solvents

    5b- Especially CO₂

[MOTOBALL]

I formerly worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and although I have not personally used SFC, I know that the process chemists use preparative SFC to purify large amounts of compounds.  The advantage compared to prep. HPLC is that vast amounts of (expensive to purchase and even more expensive to dispose of) solvents (MeCN, MeOH etc) are not consumed.

There was an interest in the mid-80's on the analytical use of SFC-MS, typical applications (off the top of my head) being surfactants, coal products etc, which at that time were not amenable to GC/MS or LC/MS with the then current column chemistries.

[Wald_ron]

Thank you very much for your help.