Experimental evidence of the kinetic performance achievable with columns packed with new 1.9 μm fully porous particles of narrow particle size distribution

Fully porous particles of narrow particle size distribution (nPSD) are now commercially available. In thispaper, the kinetic performance of columns packed with these particles (1.9 m, 80˚A pore size) has beeninvestigated under typical reversed phase conditions by using a mixture of benzene derivatives as probes.The columns exhibited remarkably high efficiency (in the order of 300,000 theoretical plates per meter)and the possibility to be used at relatively high flow rates without loss of performance.These results contrast with previous studies on the same columns. Indeed we have found columnefficiency comparable to that reported in previous work but, on the other hand, we could not observe thesame dramatic loss of performance when columns were operated at high flow rates. The results presentedin this paper, based on a set of six columns with different geometries (2.1 and 3.0 internal diameter × 50,75 and 100 mm length), are not consistent with the previously proposed hypothesis that the unusuallylow intraparticle diffusion, which would characterize these particles, is the origin of the high efficiencyof the columns. In a companion paper [1], a detailed investigation of the different terms leading to bandbroadening will be performed to point out the major contribution to plate height on nPSD columns.