Fast gradient screening of pharmaceuticals with 5 cm long, narrow bore reversed-phase columns packed with sub-3 μm core–shell and sub-2 μm totally porous particles

The performance of 5 cm long narrow-bore columns packed with 2.6–2.7 μm core–shell particles and a column packed with 1.7 μm totally porous particles was compared in very fast gradient separations of polar neutral active pharmaceutical compounds. Peak capacities as a function of flow-rate and gradient time were measured. Peak capacities around 160–170 could be achieved within 25 min with these 5 cm long columns. The highest peak capacity was obtained with the Kinetex column however it was found that as the flow-rate increases, the peak capacity of the new Poroshell-120 column is getting closer to that obtained with the Kinetex column. Considering the column permeability, peak capacity per unit time and per unit pressure was also calculated. In this comparison the advantage of sub-3 μm core–shell particles is more significant compared to sub-2 μm totally porous particles. Moreover it was found that the very similar sized (dp = 2.7 μm) and structured (ρ = 0.63) new Poroshell-120 and the earlier introduced Ascentis Express particles showed different efficiency. Results obtained showed that the 5 cm long narrow bore columns packed with sub-3 μm core–shell particles offer the chance of very fast and efficient gradient separations, thus these columns can be applied for fast screening measurements of routine pharmaceutical analysis such as cleaning validation.