How many injections on a uplc column?

Discussions about HPLC, CE, TLC, SFC, and other "liquid phase" separation techniques.

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We have changed our uplc column today and some of you may be interested in how many injections we have made on this column. It was last changed in April and since then it has had an incredible 17,105 injections on it!
Not only that but our samples are mostly microbial fermentation broths and our standard sample preparation is to add an equal volume of acetonitrile and centrifuge. We do not filter these samples.

The details - it is a Waters Acquity UPLC BEH Shield RP18, 2.1x50mm. Our standard run is a 3 minute gradient from 5% acetonitrile to 95% with both the acetonitrile and water containing 0.1%formic acid (When we run in base we switch to column2). The column is protected by an inline filter and guard column either or both of which get changed as and when needed. Our standard injection volume is 1ul.

I would be interested to hear if other people get similar numbers of injections before their columns are changed.

Chris
Wow, nice number. Be happy!
The question how many injections on a column is not only at UHPLC. It all depends on your sample matrix, the packing quality of the column, the frits and how you treat your column. Last but not least is essential the quality of the packing material. Waters is doing a lot of QC tests before a lot of the packing material is packed into a column! So you have used an first class column.

Take care and stay healthy!
Gerhard
Gerhard Kratz, Kratz_Gerhard@web.de
I've had close to 10k injections on several columns used for fairly clean pharma samples, most of the filtered. I've also had some columns fail after just one or two injections (similar samples, before ultrapure Si was a thing, but the columns were CN, Phe or NH2, not C18 or C8).
Thanks,
DR
Image
Not sure how many injections but I have had a couple HPLC columns last 5-8 years with moderate use. Mostly depends on ramping up to flow at a conservative rate, flushing with at least 50% organic mobile phase when finished and injecting clean samples.

I have had others fail after a week when not treated correctly.
The past is there to guide us into the future, not to dwell in.
As other colleagues said, it mainly depends on how one uses the column - sample prep, matrix type, eluent chemistry, temperature, flow rate (backpressure)...

I have Cortecs C18 which approaches 50k injections. This is daily use nearly 24/7. Guard column is replaced every ~2000 injections.

Other Cortecs T3 has around 30k and no sign of degradation.

These columns are 2.7 um though, so not technically an UPLC.
I QC all the acquity and cortecs columns, amongst others. Those cortecs columns can take some serious abuse. Very strong particle and after bonding virtually inert.
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