Originally Posted by
Laurens
Not at all :p The closest related thing I can say is that I'm now working with a 20 cm column.
As for the equipment, I'm still using the same high pressure pump and mass spectrometer (which measures the weight of the molecules in your mixture and then you have to "guess" what that weight means). The main replacement was from a separation column of 2 mm diameter to a 0.1 mm diameter. Taking into account that the columns relate as 22:0.12 = 4:0.01, the sensitivity should have increased about fourhundredfold (haven't measured the exact increase, but it sure is a lot better).
I like explaining these things! The separation of a mixture with HPLC is based on pumping the mixture through a column with, for instance, hydrophobic material. Hydrophilic molecules will travel faster than hydrophobic ones, hence the separation :)