Evaluation of stationary phases packed with superficially porous particles for the analysis of pharmaceutical compounds using supercritical fluid chromatography

• Novel superficially porous particles (SPP) bonded phases used for SFC application.
• Kinetic performance evaluation of superficially porous particle columns in SFC.
• Demonstrated benefit of using columns packed with SPP on SFC instrumentation.

Superficially porous particles (SPP), or core shell particles, which consist of a non-porous silica core surrounded by a thin shell of porous silica, have gained popularity as a solid support for chromatography over the last decade. In the present study, five unbonded silica, one diol, and two ethylpyridine (2-ethyl and 4-ethyl) SPP columns were evaluated under SFC conditions using two mixtures, one with 17 drug-like compounds and the other one with 7 drug-like basic compounds. Three of the SPP phases, SunShell™ 2-ethylpyridine (2-EP), Poroshell™ HILIC, and Ascentis® Express HILIC, exhibited superior performances relative to the others (reduced theoretical plate height (hmin) values of 1.9–2.5 for neutral compounds). When accounting for both achievable plate count and permeability of the support using kinetic plot evaluation, the Cortecs™ HILIC 1.6 μm and Ascentis® Express HILIC 2.7 μm phases were found to be the best choices among tested SPPs to reach efficiencies up to 30,000 plates in the minimum amount of time. For desired efficiencies ranging from 30,000 to 60,000 plates, the SunShell™ 2-EP 2.6 μm column clearly outperformed all other SPPs. With the addition of a mobile phase additive such as 10 mM ammonium formate, which was required to elute the basic components with sharp peaks, the Poroshell™ HILIC, SunShell™ Diol and SunShell™ 2-EP phases represent the most orthogonal SPP columns with the highest peak capacities. This study demonstrates the obvious benefits of using columns packed with SPP on current SFC instrumentation.