Exploring How CPC Aids Green Chemistry Practices
Despite its widespread use in the chemical industry, traditional preparative-scale liquid chromatography is considered unsustainable due to its high solvent consumption and solid waste generation. A promising green alternative to this method includes solid support free techniques like hydrostatic countercurrent chromatography — also called centrifugal partition chromatography (CPC).
The Basics of CPC, Explained
In contrast to conventional solid-liquid chromatographic techniques, CPC consists of liquid stationary and mobile phases. The stationary phase is held in place by a strong centrifugal force inside the column, while the mobile phase is pumped through it. The partitioning of the solutes between the two immiscible phases governs purification and affects the time spent within the stationary phase, which determines solute retention.
CPC offers significant cost benefits because it eliminates the need to purchase silica gel and reduces the amount of required solvents. The few types of commercially available solid silica based packing gel limits stationary phase options. And, when the gel, which fills the entire column, is saturated due to adsorption and needs to be changed, the whole column of gel must be replaced which generates a lot of waste.
Being constrained to silica gel stationary phases also limits traditional chromatography’s flexibility. When fine-tuning the separation process, chemists usually only alter the mobile phase composition instead of adjusting the stationary phase. CPC takes advantage of a wider range of possible biphasic liquid-liquid systems using the same column.
Download the free white paper here.
To help you and your business benefit from sustainable, green chemistry practices, we would like to offer you a free white paper which includes in-depth knowledge about all the topics covered here and more.
Please complete the form below to download your free white paper.
Solvent Recycling and Reuse
Sustainable separation processes reuse as much solvent material as possible, and CPC can benefit from solvent recycling through several processes like membrane filtration, ultrafiltration, dialysis and density-based recirculation.
You can read a rundown about all the research done on each method in the white paper.
A Greener Alternative to Traditional Solutions
CPC can support throughput optimization efforts by means of process intensification and switching to continuous manufacturing instead of batch manufacturing. Improving these processes would provide greater automation and quality control, simpler scalability, boosted production throughput and more sustainable manufacturing from start to finish.
CPC is a greener, more sustainable alternative to conventional preparatory separation methods due to its versatility and flexibility in available solvents, its wide range of possible isolation, fractionation and purification applications, and its potential as a valuable method of waste treatment.
If you'd like to explore how Centrifugal Partition Chromatography progresses green chemistry practices, fill out the form above, and download your free white paper.
RotaChrom brings industrial-scale CPC solutions to businesses and researchers
What we covered so far is just a taste of what's to come.
If you're ready to learn more, complete the form above, and grab your free copy of RotaChrom's 'Introduction to Chromatography White Paper'. This paper covers 4 more chapters (5 in total) besides an even more detailed chapter about what we covered above.
RotaChrom Technologies developed the world’s first industrial-scale CPC technology platform. Our instruments revolutionized purification by providing cost-effective industrial-scale chromatography solutions to customers all over the world in various industries, including pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and botanical extracts.
RotaChrom’s CPC platforms are effective solutions when looking for a high-purity, high-capacity, cost-effective and environmentally conscious solution. RotaChrom, with its in-house research laboratory employing world class PhD chemists, engineers and leading business professionals on multiple continents, is the best partner in purification.
Our portfolio includes:
- The rCPC platform for pilot-scale purification tasks within a laboratory environment. It is ideal for all batch sizes, smaller or larger, or campaign type of research work, and continuous-batch production.- The iCPC platform, which is the largest commercially available Centrifugal Partition Chromatography instrument in the world. It is designed for industrial-scale purification projects in continuous batch operation mode.
