Phenomenex Columns

[Bruce Hamilton]

Since Danko has apparently started a campaign on dissing Phenomenex columns based on his experience, I'd like to reiterate my view separately, rather than keep polluting other threads.

Obviously his experiences and comparisons are as valid for him as mine are for me. If you wish, you can choose to ignore both of us.

I used a lot of Phenomenex columns for analytical and preparative work over the past decade or so, before that I mainly used Waters. I'm not in a production environment, and use a wide range of columns for method development from a wide range of suppliers, but currently Phenomenex is my go-to supplier.

I don't dispute that Waters/Agilent/whoever generally make more durable, and even superior performing columns, however they often don't exist at the price/performance point where I conduct a lot of work.

Sadly, most of my clients don't want to pay for expensive columns during investigations, but they want the work conducted on a new column, and are usually happy with the suggestion of Phenomemex columns.

Typically, after price negotiations, Phenomenex columns are around 30 - 40% of equivalent size columns, and I personally get many years of regular use from most of their columns.

They have made some duds, with the original Gemini being one, the NX seems a little better, but there are clearly superior products available eg Waters. However, many of Phenomenex's other columns, eg Luna C18(2) are very robust in my hands.

I've had dud columns from most of the column manufacturers available here. One reason I use Phenomenex columns is because their local technical support is excellent, and they will willingly exchange columns if not meeting specification. Some of the major manufacturers' agents here provide minimal technical support.

I spent serious money on preparative cyano columns from reputable suppliers - because clients specified them, and then watched the columns die quicker than an iceberg in Hell. For some inherently-fragile, or inappropriate mobile phase / stationary phases methods, even columns from highly-reputable manufacturers made little difference to performance and durability.

This post is just to note that my reality is somewhat different to Danko's, make of that what you will.

The column market has diverse price/performance ranges in many categories, and the onus is on analysts to purchase columns appropriate to their requirements and resources.

As noted previously, unfortunately no column suppliers are paying me to promote their products, but I'm always open to expensive bribes .

Bruce Hamilton

[DR]

Agreed - each column vendor has some packings/models that are better than others. I've got (nearly) ancient columns from both Waters and Phenomenex that are still fine despite having thousands of injections, and I've got some older inertsil, Phenyl and CN columns that seemed to die as a result of having been exposed to mobile phase...

That said, I generally find silica based CN and Phe columns to be far less durable than C18 and C8 columns.

[ksharp]

I have had mixed results with Phenomenex, but I wouldn't necessarily rule out the entire company's product line.

I've been using the same Phenomenex Luna C8 5um for lipid and short peptide analysis since I started here 2.5 years ago. This column seems indestructible, when it finally dies I'll give it a suitable memorial for all the work it's done. I've also been using a Gemini-NX C18 3um for more complicated lipid samples for about a year now, and although efficiency has decreased slightly, it's been a slow decline and the results are still excellent. Both of these columns have met our needs and exceeded our expectations at a very reasonable price.

On the other hand, we've had rather terrible luck with the 300 angstrom C18 Jupiter colums (for larger biomolecules). They seem hopelessly prone to voiding, even when operated well below Phenomenex's limits. I suspect the 300A stationary phase is much more fragile. They sent us free replacements and seemed genuinely interested in identifying the cause of failure. Although we stopped using the columns, we couldn't have asked for better customer support on the issue. Every other type of Phenomenex column we've received is still alive and kicking.

I have a couple of Waters columns which I use for DNA/RNA applications, but they are expensive as hell and in general Phenomenex columns are an excellent fit for my needs.

[juddc]

I've used Phenomenex columns for many years and have found them to be good workhorse columns. I've had a dud or two, but they've always been very responsive to any issues I've had and are often quite helpful in general. I've also been pleased with Waters, SieLC, and Silvertone's columns and support.

I've only once had an issue with customer support (from a third unnamed source that we've all heard of) on a method that developed issues due to lot to lot variations between columns. They gave me a very hard time so I redeveloped the method on a Waters Symmetry, showed identical results for 3 lots of packing, got my refund, and quit doing business with the original supplier. I continue to use the Waters column for that application.

I've toured Phenomenex' facility, used a number of their columns, and do not hesitate to recommend them.

[Kostas Petritis]

When I worked at PNNL, we packed (and still packing) thousands of capillary columns with Jupiter 300A Phenomenex columns and they always worked great. We did pack up to 2 meter columns, operated up to 20,000 psi and they always worked great...

We did always packed from one lot (we bought a lot of bulk) so I can not talk about lot to lot reproducibility.

[Mattias]

Not much to add, the Luna columns have been used for many years here - good and cheap work horses for easy applications.

We also have had bad experiences of the Geminicolumn - poor peak shape, bad plate counts etc for "nice" analytes- For high pH applications, that column is not included in our "screening kit" anymore.

To pollute the thread: Phenomenex will come to our company and present their new Kinetexcolumns next week. Any good suggestions of critical questions to ask? These kind of pellicular columns have been around for many years now - why havn't they been a hit before?

[Bruce Hamilton]

To pollute the thread: Phenomenex will come to our company and present their new Kinetexcolumns next week. Any good suggestions of critical questions to ask? These kind of pellicular columns have been around for many years now - why havn't they been a hit before?

We discussed these a couple of years ago when they first came out. There are not the same as the original pellicular columns.

IIRC, they are based on the technology developed at Advanced Technology Materials, formed from the people that developed Zorbax. From memory, one of the directors is J.J.Kirkland.

http://www.advanced-materials-tech.com

Search the archives for "fused core" and you'll probably find discussions and debates on their merit.

Their time may have come, because they allow the multitude of suitable older instruments to achieve some separations and solvent economies they may not have been able to previously, without the capital cost of a new instrument.

There may be some meaningful benefits in retrofitting instrument manufacturers low volume component options when using these columns.

They can't match UPLC/UHPLC systems, but their particle size and consistency seem to offer useful benefits over conventional columns.

One early form was HALO from Mac-Mod, then Ascentis Express from Supelco. I assume that means a market niche is developing.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

[rick1112]

On the other hand, we've had rather terrible luck with the 300 angstrom C18 Jupiter colums (for larger biomolecules). They seem hopelessly prone to voiding, even when operated well below Phenomenex's limits. I suspect the 300A stationary phase is much more fragile

just curious..how did you come to the realization that there is "voiding" in the columns??

[dblux_]

just curious..how did you come to the realization that there is "voiding" in the columns??

Apexes of peaks are very characteristically shaped when there are voids in columns. I call them snake's tongue (they're split).

[Phycal]

I have worked with Phenomonex for years (and I mean years - since 1984 to be exact) and they have always been good to work with and if you had a problem - they were quick to address it.

Example - I was working on a Cyclodextrin separation on a Shodex column with showed great separation. I was developing the separation to transfer to our analytical department. They bought the same column (not the same lot) and the separation did not work. We went back to Phenomenex and talked about this. They were able to get the original lot to us and the separation was fine. In fact, we bought 25 columns of the one particular lot from them.

[ScottHorn]

Has anyone had any experience with their BioSep size exclusion columns? I'm reading some of their marketing material right now. They claim equal performance to Tosoh's SW series, twice the lifetime, and they are about half the price. Sounds too good to be true.

[Gerhard Kratz]

Has anyone had any experience with their BioSep size exclusion columns? I'm reading some of their marketing material right now. They claim equal performance to Tosoh's SW series, twice the lifetime, and they are about half the price. Sounds too good to be true.

Hi Scott, please note that there are no bad columns on the market. All depends what the end user needs and want to do. It makes a big difference if you just want to separate standard proteins, of for example PEG MABs. Please check the specifications of both columns, SW is 10µm and Biosep is 5µm. So far I know Tosoh has newer materials available, 5µm and 4µm. Anyhow, I would recommend to ask both suppliers for a trial column. Good luck. Gerhard

[ksharp]

On the other hand, we've had rather terrible luck with the 300 angstrom C18 Jupiter colums (for larger biomolecules). They seem hopelessly prone to voiding, even when operated well below Phenomenex's limits. I suspect the 300A stationary phase is much more fragile

just curious..how did you come to the realization that there is "voiding" in the columns??

Good question. As I mentioned we had a few of these die on us (peak shape was terrible, tailing like you've never seen). I opened a column up and looked inside.


Left: sad (voided) column; Right: happy (non-voided) column.

You can't see the stationary phase but it's about 3/4" down. Never seen this sort of thing with 90-120A stationary phase even after 3.5 years of use/abuse. We never used these at basic pH so I assumed it was pressure-related.


Not dissing Phenomenex products, we just told them about it, and we don't use this one anymore. Everything else has been fine. Service has always been helpful and quick. Still a customer .

[sfe-co2]

Wow this thread makes for good guidance. Thanks all.

Indeed, column packing is a difficult process......