Can I use DMSO as RP HPLC solvent?

[chemistry]

Can I use DMSO as RP HPLC solvent? Dose it damage the column?
Thanks.

[Gerhard Kratz]

You have one shot! No, you cannot use DMSO in RP chromatogrraphy. It is not soluble in Water. You can use it in GPC or Normal Phase chromatography. Do you have a compound what is only soluble in DMSO?

[Phycal]

You have one shot! No, you cannot use DMSO in RP chromatogrraphy. It is not soluble in Water. You can use it in GPC or Normal Phase chromatography. Do you have a compound what is only soluble in DMSO?

DMSO is miscible with water but there are so many other problems with this solvent - such as absorbing directly through the skin.

Can you use a solvent like tetrahydrofuran?

What are you trying to do?

[rwang]

DMSO is not my choice since the viscosity is too high. If you need a "universal" solvent with good solubility of many analytes, try Acetone (although this may be a problem for UV detection due to high UV cutoff). I also recommend you try THF.

[padmajaprabhu]

Can I use DMSO as RP HPLC solvent? Dose it damage the column?
Thanks.

I have heard of very low volumes of DMSO being used during conditioning of RP columns. However, it is not recommended to be used as mobile phase for elution of the components.

FYI, I think ACS spectro grade DMSO is available, which will reduced UV limits, they also claim that this gives minimal interference.

[Phycal]

DMSO has issues of absorbing fumes from the air. Many chemicals readily dissolve in DMSO and I did use it for that during my Ph.D. work. As others have said, it is not the best choice.

[chemistry]

Thank all of you very much for giving me helpful suggestions.
I mesure the solubility in different excipients. Since the concentration is too high, the solution need to be diluted before injecting to HPLC. I usally dilute the solution with 50% ACN. However, some compounds crashed out after dilution. So I think DMSO might be a good choice, but some people said DMSO will hurt the comlumn. So I am not sure what kind of solvent is best choice.

[Uwe Neue]

As stated above, DMSO will not hurt the column. However, it has a very high viscosity when mixed with water. This can result in unusual phenomena, such as that part of your analyte is carried through the column unretained and you can loose some of your sample this way.

You can dilute the sample with acetonitrile, or even better with methanol to get around some of the problem. The precipitation of the sample is unpleasant, but not directly a problem, since the solubility of most things in DMSO is really extraordinary.

A still better solution is at-column dilution. I can give you a reference for this.

[Alera]

DMSO will not hurt the column, but might cause artifacts, like peak splitting, tailing etc. However, for what you are trying to do, the best thing is to try small volume injection, like 1uL. This way, the sample will be quickly diluted by the mobile phase upon injection, and the artifacts will be minimal. Obviously, since you are trying to measure concentration of the dissolved excipients, you cannot afford to lose any material to "crashing out" of solution.

[dr_Pyrex]

Interesting information from article of
Michelle Whelana, b, Brian Kinsellaa, b, Ambrose Fureyb, Mary Moloneya, Helen Cantwella, Steven J. Lehotayc and Martin Danaher
Determination of anthelmintic drug residues in milk using ultra high performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry with rapid polarity switching
Journal of Chromatography A
Volume 1217, Issue 27, 2 July 2010, Pages 4612-4622

LC-MSMS conditions:
"Separations were performed using aWaters (Milford,MA, USA)
Acquity UPLC systemcomprising of a stainless steel HSS T3 analyti-
cal column (100mm×2.1mm, particle size 1.8um) equippedwith
an in-line filter unit containing a 0.2m stainless steel replace-
ment filtermaintained at a temperature of 60 ◦C and the pumpwas
operated at a flow rate of 0.6mLmin−1. A binary gradient system
was used to separate analytes comprising ofmobile phase A, 0.01%
HOAc inwater:MeCN(90:10, v/v) andmobile phase B, 5mMammo-
niumformate inMeOH:MeCN(75:25, v/v). The gradient profilewas
as follows: (1) 0–0.5min, 100% A, (2) 5min, 50% A, (3) 7min, 10% A,
(4) 8.5min, 10% A, (5) 8.51min, 0% A, (6) 9.5min, 0% A, (7) 9.51min,
100% A, (8) 13min 100% A. Injection volume was 5ul"

and information about DMSO:

"The key to this step was the addition of DMSO to
the sample extract before concentration, which acts as a keeper to
ensure analytes remain in solution and to reduce the potential for
protein binding. A further advantage of DMSO extract over MeCN
extract is that the volume injected could be increased (from 2 to
5uL) without band broadening effects."