Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC HPLC Column by Supelco for Polar Compound Separation in Biopharmaceuticals

Achieving precise separation of polar and hydrophilic compounds is a major challenge for analysts and biopharmaceutical scientists. The Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC HPLC column delivers high selectivity, efficiency, and reproducibility—helping your laboratory address complex analytical demands.

Key benefits

• Provides effective retention and separation of polar and hydrophilic compounds, supporting robust chromatography for challenging analyses.
• Delivers high selectivity for difficult to separate analytes, helping streamline method development in HILIC workflows.
• Achieves maximal resolution in HILIC mode with significant improvements in separation efficiency and peak shape for nucleosides and nucleobases under identical conditions versus a fully porous particulate ZIC®-cHILIC column.
• Offers up to 40% greater efficiency than fully porous particulate columns of the same size, enabling faster results and improved separation resolution.
• Supports biopharmaceutical needs with a 160Å pore size designed to meet the demands of biopharmaceutical analyses.
• Improves peak shapes and reduces tailing for metal sensitive and highly polar analytes, including amino acids, carbohydrates, polar metabolites, and phosphorylated compounds.
• Demonstrates superior inertness through improved peak shapes and reduced tailing for BHT, gallic acid, and norepinephrine compared with competing inert columns.
• Ensures excellent reproducibility and robustness for reliable results, maintaining consistent injection performance even when the flow rate is increased to four times the optimal rate and injection volume is increased 2.5-fold.

Key features

• Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC is a HILIC column designed for the retention and separation of polar and hydrophilic compounds.
• The stationary phase uses zwitterionic phosphorylcholine functional groups as the phase chemistry (ZIC®-cHILIC).
• The zwitterionic stationary phase is characterized by a high water-layer thickness on the surface, supporting partitioning interactions in HILIC method development.
• The particle platform is based on Fused-Core® technology using superficially porous particles (SPP).
• The underlying silica support is Type B high purity silica.
• The column is built with fully inert INERTProve™ column hardware featuring coated stainless steel (SST) to minimize unwanted interactions between column materials and analytes in HILIC applications.
• The inert hardware design is important for highly polar compounds, including amino acids, carbohydrates, and polar metabolites, and for compounds that are sensitive to metal content, including phosphorylated compounds.

Technical Specifications

• Silica: Type B (High purity silica)
• Particle platform: Superficially porous particles (SPP)
• Phase chemistry: Phosphorylcholine
• USP: –
• Particle size: 2.7 μm
• Pore size: 160A
• Surface area: 90 m²/g
• pH range: 2-8
• Max temperature: 60 °C
• Column hardware: INERTProve™

Versatile Application and Method Development

• Separation of nucleosides under HILIC conditions
  The Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC column is applied for the retention and separation of polar nucleosides. Using a mobile phase of acetonitrile and 25 mM ammonium acetate buffer in an 80/20 ratio, four nucleosides (adenosine, uridine, cytidine, and guanosine) are separated with clearly resolved retention times. Under identical chromatographic conditions, the superficially porous Ascentis® Express ZIC®-cHILIC format provides enhanced separation efficiency and peak shape compared with a fully porous ZIC®-cHILIC column of similar dimensions, supporting demanding nucleoside analyses in complex matrices.
• Analysis of nucleobases in polar test mixtures
  The column is used effectively for nucleobase separations, including thymine, uracil, adenine, and cytosine. Under the same acetonitrile/25 mM ammonium acetate 80/20 mobile phase conditions, the Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC column delivers improved plate numbers and peak symmetry compared with a fully porous ZIC®-cHILIC column. This demonstrates its suitability for laboratories investigating highly polar nucleobase components in biochemical or pharmaceutical workflows.
• Flexible method development for polar and hydrophilic compounds
  The zwitterionic phosphorylcholine functional groups and high water-layer thickness on the stationary phase provide effective retention of polar and hydrophilic analytes. This facilitates method development when dealing with difficult-to-separate polar targets, allowing users to exploit partitioning interactions typical of hydrophilic interaction chromatography.
• Amino acids, carbohydrates, and polar metabolites
  The column is suited to HILIC workflows that involve highly polar analytes such as amino acids, carbohydrates, and polar metabolites. Fully inert INERTProve™ hardware supports more reliable separation of these classes by minimizing unwanted interactions.
• Phosphorylated and metal-sensitive compounds
  Phosphorylated compounds and other highly polar, metal-sensitive analytes were evaluated using BHT, gallic acid, and norepinephrine under acetonitrile/50 mM ammonium acetate (pH 5.5, 80/20 v/v). The column demonstrated improved peak shapes and reduced tailing compared with competing inert columns.
• Robust operation under elevated flow and injection load
  Using 85% acetonitrile and 15% 25 mM ammonium acetate buffer at 30 °C with UV detection at 220 nm, injections of dodecylbenzene, uracil, cytosine, and cytidine demonstrated stable performance under increased flow and injection conditions.
• Column format options to match different workflows
  Available in 5, 10, and 15 cm lengths and 2.1, 3.0, and 4.6 mm internal diameters, all with 2.7 μm particles and INERTProve™ hardware, allowing alignment with diverse HILIC method development strategies.

List of products under Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC

With more than 23 years of expertise, Chemical Express is your official distributor for Merck, Supelco, and leading brands. Purchase the Ascentis® Express 160Å ZIC®-cHILIC HPLC columns and related chromatography products directly through Chemical Express for guaranteed quality and professional support.