Chromatography Forum

dear collegues
good morning
please can any suggest to me how can i monitoring the life time column ;i know that by checking the teorethical plates at time of use,and cheking the pressure too.
but,in my lab, in one column we test many pharmaceutical substances,and it difficult monitorig the teoretical plates....
it is possible to predict the life time of column usin the volume of solvents that cross it in the time.
thanks for your comments
att
paul duque
col

I think there are two general trains of thought with regard to your question,

- If the column in question is for 'general use', you could either employ (a) the conditions prescribed on the accompanying manufacturer's certificate or (b) your own defined methodology and monitor parameters such as the plate number, resolution and tailing factors on a periodic basis.

- If the column is used for a specific analysis, perhaps a pharmacopoeial method or one developed or verified in-house then the associated method will typically have a set of 'system suitability' parameters which have to be met. It is quite reasonable to deduce that once these parameters cannot be comfortably met, and accounting for any troubleshooting steps that you might take in the case of a failure, the column is no longer fit for purpose and should be replaced.

"in my lab, in one column we test many pharmaceutical substances,and it difficult monitorig the teoretical plates.... " - probably you use some methods for these analysis, these methods probably have sth like SST, each method has different levels for SST parameters (such as plates) but if SSTs parameters are met then you can conclude that the column is not old enough to throw it away

You may also want to consider a column use log to track the number of analyses performed. Since the column is used for multiple substances, it will be difficult to predict the lifetime. In my experience we typically only use one column per method so we can monitor the column parameters easily. In the past I've also used Agilent column tags to track column usage electronically.