Chromatography Forum

I have C18 stationary phase for flash chromatography from Aldrich Catalog #37763-5. I need to saparate Tetracycline and its products. It is expensive and I have question, can I re-use it after some treatmet?

Possibly,

It depend what you are loading onto it, and what you are using the product for. You need to perform a risk assessment first to ascertain if reuse is economic - when compared to potential consequences.

It's very unlikely that it would be economic to recyle flash material if you are making a product that is going for expensive biological testing or further expensive synthesis.

It's also very unlikely, without extensive validation, that you could reuse flash material if you are using it to prepare samples for analysis. You would have to show that all detectable and relevant impurities are flushed from the column before next use, something that's often not easy to do.

If you are just making a product for general research, or are developing processes, then you could reuse it. you just have to perform some some flushing and validation steps to show the material is still performing the separation you want.

Most firms that I've encountered find the cost of separation media is trivial compared to the cost of further work downstream on the products, consequently are very reluctant to take the risk.

Only you, and your clients can decide, and formal risk assessments are the way forward.

When I first started working in a lab, ordinary column chromaotgraphy silica was expensive, and labour was cheap, so synthesis chemists all had their own tricks to keep reusing columns for months on diverse prioducts. These days - with high sensitivity MS detectors, that's a very risky approach.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

If you're interested in demonstrating to yourself how tough it is to manually pack columns in a reliable and reproducible manner, and seeing how poor a result you get from poorly packed columns, go for it.

Otherwise, I'd buy columns from vendors for "real" work.

I see no reason why C18 flash chromatography columns cannot be reused otherwise you may as well say you could only use a reverse phase column once!

DR are you confusing ordinary reverse phase columns with flash chromotography columns?

If the material is properly washed with a strongly eluting solvent it should be OK for reuse.

The only way is to give it a go!

Have a go Jawad.....no harm trying when budget is the main concern.

Hope you're not thinking of packing ordinary analytical columns any sooner. These are quite difficult and can be down-right dangerous.

Good luck....do let us know of your results.