Novel design for centrifugal counter-current chromatography: VI. Ellipsoid column.

A novel ellipsoid column was designed for centrifugal counter-current chromatography. Performance of the ellipsoid column with a capacity of 3.4 mL was examined with three different solvent systems composed of 1-butanol-acetic acid-water (4:1:5, v/v) (BAW), hexane-ethyl acetate-methanol-0.1 M HCl (1:1:1:1, v/v) (HEMH), and 12.5% (w/w) PEG1000 and 12.5% (w/w) dibasic potassium phosphate in water (PEG-DPP) each with suitable test samples. In dipeptide separation with BAW system, both stationary phase retention (Sf) and peak resolution (Rs) of the ellipsoid column were much higher at 0° column angle (column axis parallel to the centrifugal force) than at 90° column angle (column axis perpendicular to the centrifugal force), where elution with the lower phase at a low flow rate produced the best separation yielding Rs at 2.02 with 27.8% Sf at a flow rate of 0.07 ml/min. In the DNP-amino acid separation with HEMW system, the best results were obtained at a flow rate of 0.05 ml/min with 31.6% Sf yielding high Rs values at 2.16 between DNP-DL-glu and DNP-β-ala peaks and 1.81 between DNP-β-ala and DNP-L-ala peaks. In protein separation with PEG-DPP system, lysozyme and myolobin were resolved at Rs of 1.08 at a flow rate of 0.03 ml/min with 38.9% Sf. Most of those Rs values exceed those obtained from the figure-8 column under similar experimental conditions previously reported.