Investigation of mass transfer properties and kinetic performance of high‐efficiency columns packed with C18 sub‐2μm fully‐ and superficially porous particles

Three columns respectively packed with 2.0 mum superficially porous particles, 1.7 mum fully porous particles and monodisperse 1.9 mum fully porous particles with narrow particle size distribution have been deeply characterized from a kinetic point of view. The 1.9 mum column showed excellent kinetic performance, comparable to that of the superficially porous one. These two columns also exhibit flatter c-branches of the van Deemter curve compared to the 1.7 mum fully porous particles column, resulting in smaller loss of efficiency when they are operated at higher flow rates than the optimal ones. The independent evaluation of each contribution to band broadening has revealed that the difference in kinetic performance comes from the very small eddy dispersion contribution on the 1.9 mum column, surprisingly even lower than that of the superficially porous one. This finding suggests a very good packing of the monodisperse 1.9 mum column. On the other hand, the potential of 1.7 mum fully porous particles is completely broken down by the strong frictional heating effect already arising at relatively low flow rates. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.