Innovation and new applications in chiral chromatography for the pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural industries are essential to success in this highly competitive market. A key component of a chiral column is the starting silica used to bond the stationary phase. Although suppliers make claims of superiority about the silica used, real-life data can lead to different conclusions and can impact analytical and preparative separations.
Described here is a head-to-head comparison of ten well-characterized chiral reference compounds run by HPLC and SFC on 5 μ Whelk-O 1 phases bonded to two silica particle types; Exsil and Kromasil, which are both spherical uniform porous silica particles.

A Performance Comparison of Whelk-O 1 Bonded to Exsil and Kromasil Silicas.