Tag: solvents
Flash column chromatography equilibration speed – how fast can you go?
Equilibrating silica flash chromatography columns is something I always do. There are chemists who see this as an unnecessary, time-and-solvent-wasting step. Because getting consistent, predictable results is a priority, I equilibrate to remove the variability that can be caused by heat generated as solvent initially contacts the silica. Consistency is really important when running flash column chromatography because re-runs are time consuming and may put your compound at risk.
In this post, I examine the role of equilibration speed and duration to show its impact, or lack there of, on purification performance.
How can I perform normal-phase and reversed-phase column chromatography on one flash system?
For chemists, flash chromatography is part of their everyday synthesis workflow. For most syntheses, crude reaction mixtures are purified by normal-phase (aka adsorption) chromatography. There are times; however, where the crude mixture’s complexity and polarity make normal-phase chromatography very challenging. For these situations, reversed-phase (aka partition) chromatography may be a preferred option.
But, if you have only one flash system available, can you, should you, and how do you efficiently switch from non-polar, normal-phase solvents to polar, reversed-phase solvents – and back again without issues? In this post I’ll attempt to shed some light on the topic.
5 Steps to successful flash chromatography
The bane of organic synthesis for most chemists is purification rather than synthesis. Synthetic reaction mixtures are rarely devoid of impurities so some type of purification is necessary. Most often flash chromatography is used but for many chemists, it is less well understood than their chemical reaction and provides some level of anxiety.
In this post, I will summarize the five most important steps to creating a successful flash chromatography method and thus the anxiety associated with it.
How does solvent choice impact reversed-phase flash chromatography separations?
I have recently posted on how solvent choice influences the separation of hard to resolve compounds using normal-phase flash chromatography. As a chemist with an inquiring mind, I thought I would expand my research beyond normal-phase and see what happens in reversed-phase.
In this post, I share my results.
How can I modify my flash chromatography method to separate chemically similar compounds?
The challenges organic, medicinal, and natural product chemists face are many: from designing reactions, to optimizing synthesis, work-up / extraction, and purification / isolation of the desired compound or compounds. Among those issues related to purification / isolation is the common problem of separating compounds with similar chemistry that either co-elute or separate poorly.
In this post I will discuss some tips on how to “resolve” this issue (yes, pun intended).
Ionizable compound purification using reversed-phase flash column chromatography
With most chromatographic purifications, only two solvents are needed to adequately separate compounds from each other. Unfortunately, there are instances where the separation is either poor or cannot be accomplished with “normal” elution conditions such as those with ionic or very polar organic molecules.
In this post I offer some solutions to this issue.
Continue reading Ionizable compound purification using reversed-phase flash column chromatography
