I run a closed loop, roto and short path but am looking to get into chromatography. It’s completely new to me so what kind of system am I looking for and what are some good brands? Thx
What are your goals? Purification? Analytical analysis? Chromatography is a very broad subject that can be employed for a variety of end results.
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My votes on automated systems:
Gilson prep HPLC/UHPLC with liquid handler -
I love triulution software because it is simple to write methods for. You are generally limited to the size of your column but we have ran columns as large as 2 - 3 L of resin on them. This is still pretty small scale and is usually for high purity molecules. Each run was only a few grams if that. Most of our runs were a programmed series of injections of a few mmol of substance until it was gone. The largest run we completed was on 20 g of sample (so in the world of distillate, small) but it was a void mode type of chromatography where the “junk” sticks to the column and our product falls through. Requires computers, software and licenses.
GE AKTA Series -
Omega customer service. Super nice user interface and much easier programming than triulution due to the drag and drop type prep. sequence manager that it uses. Stupid expensive and usually reserved for biotech. Can be pump driven or pneumatic driven. The AKTA Pilot can easily push a 5-10L column of resin putting it in the realm of possibility, but these are mostly FPLC type units only capable of 30 psi (I don’t actually know, but I don’t recall ever pushing a column past that on an AKTA). These systems can be paired with a scaleable types of columns, so long as the method can withstand the scale up process. Requires computers, software, and licenses.
Teledyne ISCO flash prep -
Uses cartridges, much cheaper options, computer integrated into the unit so no licenses. Usually for flash type chromatography and uses pre-bought cartridges. I don’t believe these cartridges go past 5L for the teledyne or any comparable unit like the biotage or buchi systems. You can buy your own resin and pack your own columns if you wanted a cheaper option here.
Buchi - on the lowest end of the chromatography price spectrum @ around 18K used(?). They will come out and train you and update your unit for a similar price too.
Biotage - great user interface and great system, not very many used systems on the market right now.
You could always build your own system too. Look @ old Amersham Biosciences systems and grab a column. the older FPLC systems are basically fluid handlers and UV detectors. Just develop your method and scale up.
What kind of chromatography are you wanting to do? Pesticide remediation? THC Remediation? Reaction work ups?
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Also very interested in this and very new to it.
Mainly looking to learn about systems good for THC remediation, although I am hearing that their are some better options out there right now for medium-large scale THC remediation
But also would like to hear opinions on a set up just for in house Analytics…
Purification
Would like to discuss. You have an email I can message what I’m looking to accomplish?
Teledyne will also not sell directly to the cannabis processors. But will sell to researchers and they do look into the company.
For purification there are plenty of small to large column systems available:
If you’re looking to spend some money on larger scale systems, I have used Biorad and GE in the past to great success. They will be able to sell you essentially full plug and play systems (you would need to know what kind of column and stationary phase you want, what mobile phase you would use), but the system itself would be ready to go.
If you are looking to save a lot of money, you can essentially pack your own columns and you can purify with gravity fed vacuum systems. You could most likely just invest in a simple detector system and do pretty much everything manually.
Like NewLevelProcess mentioned, picking up an older or used FPLC system would be more than sufficient to do some purification and introduce you to some chromatography systems.
If you’re looking to do analytics then you need to determine if you need liquid or gas chromatography.
Personally, I’m a big agilent fanboy for both of those but Shimadzu and Waters are also solid systems. If you just want to look at purity then an HPLC should be sufficient with a simple binary pump and UV/Vis detector. If you want to do a terpene profile, I would suggest GC for that with an FID. It’s usually easier to find cheaper plug and play GC’s than HPLC’s.
If you’re looking to get into in-house analytics cheaply, then I would recommend checking out some auction sites that are selling used government lab equipment. If you are not mechanically inclined and understand how these systems usually work, then that may or may not be the best option for you as you would need to most likely do some troubleshooting and maintenance on the instrument if it is used. But that’s the best way to learn about these instruments in my opinion, just jump right in and read about it and figure it out.
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That is definitely how I have always learned best… By just doing it.
Thanks for the info my friend! Very helpful.
If you’re going purification of THC from CBD and don’t want to deal with resins you should check out Gilson’s Centrifugal Partition Chromatography Unit. Just as a discussion: You should be aware of your consumables costs like HPLC Grade water, methanol, ACN and/or resin which is stupid expensive (C18 Reversed-Phase SiO2 – Fluka (Sigma-Aldrich) – $250 / 50 g being a quick example from google). Now think about all the resin you will use in liter amounts and that you can basically fry the resin if you push air over after its been wet. A 2L column is a reasonable column for preparatory chromatography so say 2000L/50g*$250=$10,000. That’s an expensive column to fuck up. It’s also got a finite number of lives until your resolution drops off and you need to repack - until you do you will begin seeing your CBD and THC phases overlap. A CPC doesn’t use resin at all. It uses a liquid liquid extraction using a pump and centrifugal forces that pushes your injection and gradient through thousands of liquid liquid extraction pockets. So long as you have solvent and power you can keep sequencing runs on a triulution like software for their PLC on the CPC unit. I believe they run about 200k brand new with on-site training included. You must have an HPLC or GC potency lab set up and running for the training. Never used one hands on but I was nearly sold on one for another lab. I hope I get some hands on experience on one of these soon. Saw a used one sell on linkedin for like 185k. CPC 1000 PRO Daily Input_Solvent Consumption mdk.pdf (616.9 KB)
8-12 kilos a day purification $$$$$
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U can purify 9-12 kilos of extract or biomass w that set up? Pics of the product or starting material? Thx
I use it for separating specific cannabinoids from distillate. Works great! This pic came from the Cbn thread, I dont have a pic of mine but it’s the same. I can snap one while I’m in the lab tomorrow. That’s 8 kilos of separated fractions from starting oil.
Anyone have experience manually loading the tubes for a Buchi so you don’t have to wait the hour for the machine to do it?
8 to 12 kilo throughput. Sorry, I just reread my post and myself full of bs 
Pushing air over resin isn’t a big deal these days if you know how to regenerate and repack your purification column.
Furthermore, there is significantly more data out there on purification of these molecules on your classic solid phase chromatography. CPC is a very new technology to this market and if he has no experience in chromatography and isn’t versed well in chemistry, I would advise against a CPC as you will need to do a lot of your own method development in-house. Furthermore, even their 1L system doesn’t have significantly high throughput compared to what you can get with a stationary phase packed column.
I’ve had hands on experience with a CPC and while they are useful, I believe that a stationary phase based column on a classic liquid chromatography system would be better suited than a CPC if your only goal is to separate THC from CBD.
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Can you explain why you prefer a stationary phase column?
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