Supercritical Fluid Chromatography Technology

Supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) is a separation technique similar to gas and liquid chromatography, but using a supercritical fluid as mobile phase. Supercritical fluids are more than an order of magnitude less viscous than liquids, and the diffusion coefficient of substances in supercritical fluids is several hundred times greater than that in liquids. For this reason, SFC can achieve high separation efficiency even when the flow rate of the mobile phase is increased. SFC has been used primarily for separation of chiral molecules, mainly those which required Normal Phase conditions. The applications include analyzing a wide variety of drug compounds such as antibiotics, prostaglandins, steroids, taxol, vitamins, barbiturates, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents, etc. Chiral separations can be performed for many pharmaceutical compounds.