Development of innovative analytical methods for analytes of pharmaceutical interest based on ultra-high supercritical fluid chromatography associated with chemometrics tools

Abstract

Ultra High Performance Supercritical Fluid Chromatography (UHPSFC) is a new analytical technique that began to emerge since the worldwide launch of the first commercial equipment in 2012. Considering that the mobile phase is formed by the sub/supercritical CO2 associated with small quantities of organic solvents, this technique can be considered an unification of liquid and gas chromatography. The low viscosity of the mobile phase and high diffusivity of the analytes allow to achieve similar chromatographic efficiency as gas chromatography while the presence of organic modifiers of different polarities ensures the high selectivity reached in the liquid chromatography. Due to the possibility of changing the polarity of the mobile phase, it becomes possible to use different stationary phases ranging from bare silica used in normal-phase liquid chromatography to nonpolar phase used in reverse phase liquid chromatography. All these factors together make the technique extremely promising for analyzing a wide range of compounds. This project aims to evaluate this innovative technique for the development of faster, efficient and low-solvent consumption analytical methods for pharmaceutical compounds with different physical-chemical characteristics and high economic relevance belonging to the classes of statins, beta-blockers and vitamins, both hydrophilic and lipophilic. Multivariate methods of design of experiments (DOE) and optimization will be associated with the analytical development in order to better comprehend the retention mechanisms involved in this technique. (AU)