Caroline West on SFC's Green Promise

At analytica 2026 in Munich, Germany, LCGC International interviewed Caroline West from the University of Orleans on her presentation, “Supercritical fluid chromatography as a sustainable analytical method.”¹

In this interview clip, West answers the following questions:

• You highlight column durability as one way SFC's greenness shows up at the analytical scale — how significant is this factor in practice?
• SFC has historically been dominated by pharmaceutical applications — what have been the biggest technical or methodological challenges in extending it to other areas, and where are the gaps still?

Traditionally, SFC has been valued in preparative workflows because its mobile phases are inherently safer, less toxic, and far more solvent‑efficient than those used in conventional liquid chromatography. With improvements in instrumentation throughout the 2010s, particularly regarding stability, robustness, and compatibility with mass spectrometry, SFC began to gain momentum in analytical laboratories as well.² As a result, its use has expanded well beyond its pharmaceutical origins to encompass natural product characterization, polymer and plastics analysis, and a variety of environmental applications.

While solvent savings at the analytical scale may not match those achieved in large‑scale preparative contexts, West emphasized that SFC’s sustainability benefits remain compelling. These include extended column lifetimes due to reduced chemical stress on stationary phases, more efficient online sample‑preparation options, and workflow designs that naturally generate less hazardous waste.

In the accompanying video interview, West addresses the significance of column durability in analytical laboratories, the historical dominance of pharmaceuticals in SFC research and application, and the technical challenges encountered when adapting SFC methods to new and emerging fields. She also highlights where methodological gaps still exist and outlines areas where further development could meaningfully broaden SFC’s applicability.

Caroline West is a full professor in analytical chemistry at the University of Orleans, France. Her main scientific interests lie in the fundamentals of chromatographic selectivity, both in the achiral and chiral modes, mainly in supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC), but also in liquid chromatography (LC).

References

1. West, C. Supercritical fluid chromatography as a sustainable analytical method. Presented at analytica 2026, in Munich, Germany. https://analytica.de/en/event-program/conference/lecture/supercritical-fluid-chromatography-as-a-sustainable-analytical-method-15457/ (accessed 2026-03-26).
2. Matheson, A. Modern Supercritical Fluid Chromatography: An HPLC 2025 Video Interview with Caroline West; https://www.chromatographyonline.com/view/modern-supercritical-fluid-chromatography-an-hplc-2025-video-interview-with-caroline-west (accessed 2026-03-26).