6 Free HPLC Tools on the Web

There are quite a few free tools on the web to help you use HPLC effectively. I have chosen six tools to share with you in this blog that I think should prove useful, in no particular order of preference. Please let me know if there are any others that you think should have been mentioned and I’ll include them in a future blog.

1. HPLC Troubleshooting Guide by Uwe Neue
This excellent troubleshooting guide by the late Dr. Neue takes the form of a series of questions and answers, where each topic starts off with a question describing a particular problem and the answer suggests a possible solution. This is then followed up with more information and builds up into a dialogue on each troubleshooting topic. The guide is well written in an easy to understand format and is presented as a pdf where the bookmarks have been carefully set up to allow you to navigate through the document easily and find the topic that relates to your troubleshooting enquiry. Click here to access the guide.


2. Successful HPLC - A Troubleshooting Guide

This guide from Thermo is in the form of a booklet which works through the symptoms of potential HPLC problems (visual, pressure, baseline and changes in chromatography) and provides advice on what could be causing the issue. It also includes some general, helpful advice for HPLC. I particularly like the advice regarding preparation and handling of solvents.  Click here to access the guide. 

3. HPLC Method Transfer Calculator 

Many manufacturers provide scaling calculators so that you can makes changes to HPLC method parameters and still retain similar chromatography. Recently scaling from HPLC to UHPLC and vice versa has become important as the new capabilities of UHPLC are exploited. One of these calculators is from Supelco, it is available online, and also as mobile app for Android and iPhone/iPad. It’s easy to use, you simply input your current method parameters and the change you wish to make to particle size, column length and internal diameter, the tool will provide the new method conditions. It works for isocratic and gradient methods. 

Click here to access the tool.

4. Liquid Chromatography Textbook

Liquid Chromatography (Chrom-Ed Series) by Raymond P. W. Scott, Library 4 Science

This useful textbook contains detailed descriptions of the components of liquid chromatography systems, e.g. pumps, detectors, etc., and is likely to be helpful to enhance understanding of these. It also covers silica and bonded phases together with some case studies.

The book is available as a free Kindle download. Full details are available at: http://www.chromatography-online.org/amazon_free.html

5. USP Column Equivalency Application

For those of you who don’t work in the pharmaceutical Industry, USP is ‘United States Pharmacopeia’. The column comparison tool that they offer is free to access and useful to anyone using HPLC, not just those who work with pharmaceuticals. The tool will allow you to find a column that is equivalent to one which you specify, or may also be used to find a column which has different selectivity, something that can be very useful during method development. Click here to start the application and when you have agreed to the disclaimer, click on ‘Compare Columns’. There are two database options, I recommend the bottom one, or PQRI (Product Quality Research Institute) Database. Select the column you are interested in from the drop down menu and, if you know there are acids and bases in your sample, tick the appropriate boxes. You can also specify a pH. There are two other options, either select ‘View Similar’ or ‘View Different’ as required. A full description of the approach and how the database was created can be accessed on the webpage.

6. MTS HPLC Calculator

And finally, I couldn’t leave out the HPLC calculator provided by yours truly! This free download includes a range of helpful calculations, none of which you couldn’t do yourself, but intended to be a convenient tool for those with a busy workload. It will help with equilibration times, preparation of mobile phase and using scouting gradients for method development. Click here to access the download page.