PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF SUPERCRITICAL CARBON DIOXIDE-PACKED CAPILLARY COLUMNS FOR HPLC AND SFC

Preparation of packed capillary columns with supercritical carbon diox ide as the packing carrier is demonstrated; column performance was eva luated by both HPLC and SFC. It is shown that this procedure yields ex cellent column performance. The density of the packed bed can be contr olled by varying the restrictor dimensions and the packing pressure. C olumn preparation using a supercritical fluid is more rapid than with liquid slurry packing and yields good column stability. Because superc ritical fluids have a wider range of viscosities and velocities, in co mparison with gases and liquids, a wide choice of packing conditions i s available. Several applications of columns packed by this method are presented.