High-Performance Liquid Chromatography in Pharmaceutical Analysis

Introduction

HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) is an analytical chemistry technique for separating, identifying, and quantifying each component in a mixture.

Prior to HPLC, scientists relied on traditional liquid chromatographic methods. Chromatography can be defined as an adsorption-based mass transfer method.  The majority of liquid chromatographic systems were ineffective. Because the flow rate of solvents is determined by gravity, liquid chromatographic devices are inefficient. Separations could take several hours, and even days to complete. Although Gas Chromatography (GC) was more powerful at the time than Liquid Chromatography (LC), it was thought that gas phase separation and analysis of extremely polar high molecular weight biopolymers would be difficult due to the flow rate of solvents being determined by gravity. Because of the thermal instability of the solutes, GC was ineffective for many biochemists. As a result, various approaches were proposed, eventually leading to the invention of HPLC.

About the Study

Chromatography is a technique for separating components in a mixture based on how long each component takes to go through a stationary phase when carried by a mobile phase. The stationary phase is fixed in place either in a column (a hollow tube constructed of a suitable material, such as glass) or on a flat surface, and the mobile phase passes over or through it, bringing the sample of interest with it. A solid, a liquid adsorbed on a solid, or an organic species (e.g., a Cis alkyl chain) attached to a solid surface can all be used as the stationary phase. The stationary phase is fixed in place in a column in gas chromatography and supercritical-fluid chromatography. A column is used in High-Performance Liquid Chromatography.

In HPLC method, the pumps transport a pressured liquid and a sample combination through a column loaded with adsorbent, allowing the sample components to be separated. The adsorbent, or active component of the column, is usually a granular substance made up of solid particles (e.g., silica, polymers, etc.) with a size of 2–50 m. A "mobile phase" is a pressurised liquid that is typically a mixture of solvents (e.g., water, acetonitrile, and/or methanol). The pressurised liquid solvent containing the sample combination is pumped through a solid adsorbent material-filled column. Because of their varying degrees of contact with the adsorbent particles, the components of the sample mixture are separated from one another. Its composition and temperature have a big impact on the separation process because they influence how sample components interact with the adsorbent.

HPLC has been used in manufacturing (e.g., during the manufacturing process of pharmaceutical and biological products), legal (e.g., detecting performance enhancement drugs in urine), research (e.g., separating the components of a complex biological sample or similar synthetic chemicals from one another), and medical (e.g., detecting vitamin D levels in blood serum) applications.

Conclusion

In both laboratory and clinical science, HPLC has a wide range of applications. It is a widely utilised approach in pharmaceutical development since it is a reliable method of obtaining and ensuring product purity. Despite the fact that HPLC may yield exceedingly high-quality (pure) products, it is not generally the principal approach for producing bulk medicinal materials. Doping agents, drug metabolites, glucuronide conjugates, amphetamines, opioids, cocaine, BZDs, ketamine, LSD, cannabis, and pesticides have all been detected using this method. For research purposes, similar assays can be used to identify quantities of possible clinical candidates such as antifungal and asthma medicines.