If you were going to start fresh, what would you choose?

[romanian]

It looks like I may get the chance to start an HPLC food lab with new everything.

I was looking at Dionex, as their Chromeleon software seems practical (I never used it before, I may be completely off).

The UHPLC and nanoUHPLC should be very nice and fast. I am looking for same-day turnaround of food sample analysis.

Cost will surely be a factor, but more important will be usability and integration. Small learning curve and ability to integrate with online data sharing will be critical.

I would love to hear all your feedback and ideas. Thanks!

[Csaba]

Hi,
This is a sensitive issue! The four market leaders are Agilent, Dionex, Shimadzu and Waters. I would need a good reason to consider any other hardware vendor.

In this forum, the software has been discussed a number of times. The taste is different. Some prefer Empower, some ChemStation and some Chromeleon (my favorite) etc.

If you send a e mail with your address to CsabaU at Hotmail.com, I can send you some information how to evaluate instrumetns and CDS.

// Csaba

[lmh]

trial everything! There are lots of options out there and everyone is convinced theirs is the best.

[shaun78]

As a matter of personal taste and opinion: Waters H-Class Acquity UPLCs and Empower.

Reason for the Acquity system is it is the only one on the market (that I am aware of) that is a true quat pump. Combine that with a column switcher and the fact that you can split line D into seven (or so) solvent lines and you can get some serious work done.

I pick Empower for the CDS because I personally like it the best ...

[PhotonicGuy]

I would probably choose Empower but I agree that you should try as many as possible and try to make an opinion by yourself , because some other might suit your needs better. Good luck!

[unmgvar]

Actually Dionex were the first to propose a UHPLC with a LPG gradient pump
But then again Waters marketing system is the best, they will convince if necessary that they invented the light bulb and wheel as well

anyway if you wish to truly go for UHPLC then only a HPG pump will work for you because only with those kind of pumps will you be able to make stable and fast gradient under 3-4 minutes
true having a HPG pump requires a little more understanding on functionality but basically nobody really wants or uses a 3 or 4 solvent gradient,
those that do, truly wished they had not have one or could change it to a simpler binary method.

if you want to be efficient the you need to look at the reporting capabilities of your software, and for that with its excel based reporting Chromelon in my view is the best. it will be the easiest to learn and implement in order to get all your calculations and reporting needs.
empower can do it as well but in my view ease of use is not a strong point of empower

anyway these days you are not tied up to and should not buy the hardware and software from the same vendor, especially since the better CDS can control almost any HPLC or UHPLC

remember that UHPLCs are more sensitive and that is a very sharp and painful sometimes double edge sword.
you will need to give a lot more care to daily maintenance to your equipment and give more care to the columns, mobile phase, sample prep otherwise you will have more downtime due to clogging in the system
it is not something that you should detter you from UHPLC, but be aware of the different needs compare to HPLC

[Don_Hilton]

Look for two things: 1) is the instrument able to do what you need to do - without undue effort on your part and 2) how is the local support. Even with the best of companies, service can be spotty. Get reference from the vendor and talk to local labs about support.

[romanian]

Just wanted to say thanks to all that wrote. Your input is greatly appreciated. It will be a while until I get to look at all these systems, but i will try to post up some of my experiences and hopefully, the final chosen setup... It may be a few good months till then :-)

Thank you all!