Perform Fast, High-efficiency Chiral Separations Like Never Before - InfinityLab Poroshell 120 Chiral Columns

Importance of the Topic

Chiral separations are crucial in pharmaceutical, clinical and agrochemical research because enantiomers often exhibit distinct biological activities and safety profiles. Accurate resolution and quantification of each enantiomer ensure product efficacy, regulatory compliance and patient safety. Advances in chromatography can streamline workflows, reduce solvent consumption and accelerate time to result.

Goals and Overview

This application note introduces Agilent’s InfinityLab Poroshell 120 Chiral column family, designed to deliver fast, high-efficiency separations of chiral compounds under four liquid chromatography (LC) modes or supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). The main objectives are to demonstrate improved throughput, ruggedness and method flexibility compared with conventional fully porous chiral columns, and to outline a general screening protocol for selecting optimal stationary phases.

Methodology and Instrumentation

The Poroshell 120 Chiral portfolio includes four bonded phases: cyclofructan (CF-6), hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin, vancomycin and teicoplanin. Each chemistry supports normal phase, reversed phase, polar organic, polar ionic or SFC modalities. Screening of sample classes (e.g., amines, amino acids, β-blockers) follows Agilent’s recommended workflow, combining initial broad screening in normal and reversed phases followed by fine optimization. Surface-porous particle technology (2.7 µm superficially porous particles on a solid silica core) underpins all columns, offering high efficiency and reduced analysis times.

Main Results and Discussion

Compared to traditional 250 × 4.6 mm, 5 µm chiral columns, Poroshell 120 Chiral columns (100 × 4.6 mm, 2.7 µm) achieved comparable or better resolution in under five minutes. For example, amphetamine enantiomers were baseline resolved in under five minutes versus 10–20 minutes on conventional columns. Switching from normal to reversed phase reduced solvent use by up to 69% and increased peak height tenfold. Performance remained stable across pH 2.5–7 and temperatures up to 45 °C at pressures up to 400 bar.

Benefits and Practical Applications

• Throughput is increased up to 10-fold due to shorter runtimes.
• Method flexibility allows migration of legacy normal-phase methods to reversed phase for greener solvent use (e.g., methanol instead of heptane).
• High resolution of diverse analyte classes (amines, amino acids, profens, β-blockers) in pharmaceutical, clinical and environmental analysis.
• Ruggedness and reproducibility via robust superficially porous particle technology compatible with standard LC or SFC systems.

Future Trends and Opportunities

Integration of Poroshell 120 Chiral columns with ultra-high-pressure LC and multidimensional separation platforms will further accelerate chiral method development. Enhanced coupling with mass spectrometry can extend applications to trace-level impurity profiling. Continued development of novel chiral selectors and surface chemistries will broaden selectivity and enable greener mobile phases such as water-rich or CO₂-based systems.

Conclusion

Agilent InfinityLab Poroshell 120 Chiral columns leverage superficially porous particle technology and diverse bonded phases to provide rapid, high-efficiency enantiomer separations across multiple LC modes and SFC. The combination of speed, resolution, solvent savings and ruggedness makes them an ideal solution for modern chiral workflows in research, quality control and regulatory environments.

Reference

• Put InfinityLab Poroshell 120 Chiral Innovation to Work for Your Challenging Separations. Application Note 5991-8450EN.
• Chiral Analysis of Amino Acids with Agilent InfinityLab Poroshell 120 Chiral-T Columns. Application Note 5994-1366EN.
• Modernizing Chiral Separations with Glycopeptide-Based Chiral Columns. Application Note 5994-2143EN.
• Chiral Separation of Methamphetamine and Amphetamine on an Agilent InfinityLab Poroshell 120 Chiral-V Column with Detection by LC/MS. Application Note 5991-8968EN.
• Quantitation of the Chiral Shift in Metabolism of Propranolol Using 2D-LC/MS/MS. Application Note 5994-1772EN.
• Chiral Screening for SFC and UHPLC with the Agilent 1260 Infinity II SFC/UHPLC Hybrid System. Application Note 5994-0171EN.