Micro-bore high-performance liquid chromatography for the analysis of pharmaceutical compounds

A micro-bore high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) system has been constructed using commercially available instruments and pre-packed micro-bore columns. The flow-rates to obtain the highest efficiency for a reversed-phase column and for a silica column are ca. 20 microliters/min and 5 microliters/min, respectively. The micro-bore HPLC system is sixteen times more sensitive than a conventional HPLC system for detection of a compound. With little or no modification in the composition of mobile phases used in conventional HPLC, micro-bore HPLC attains high column efficiency and peak resolution for the analysis of antibiotics, steroids, ibuprofen and sulfonylurea. Micro-bore HPLC has been demonstrated to be capable of performing high speed analysis with a relative standard deviation of ca. 1%.