How much will UPLC be used in the future?

[critical647]

I'm looking to start a possible business around UPLC. I'm no analytical expert. For you pros out there, what does the outlook look like for UPLC? Is it going to be widely used once the equipment become cheaper and more accessible? What are some of the currently limitations? Any insight would be helpful.

[aldehyde]

I don't see LC going anywhere any time soon, too important to too many industries. Equipment is only going to get better, smaller, and faster. When I was in LC training we were talking about a standard used by Agilent where in the 90s it was a 15 minute runtime, and with today's technology the record for fastest run time (WITH good separation) is about 15 seconds.

With the cost of solvents, proper disposal etc everyone is looking to reduce the amount of volume used.

[tom jupille]

Ron Majors wrote one of his period "column utilization" columns last November in LC/GC:
http://chromatographyonline.findanalyti ... ail/642208

If you look at his numbers, you'll see that it took over 20 years for 3-micron columns to match 5-micron columns in usage. I suspect that the shift to sub-2 micron columns will run on about the same time scale. It will happen, but slowly. Looking far forward (30 years ?) I think LC systems (or any analytical instrument) will look like this: