PALO ALTO, CA, April 29, 2004--Varian has announced two new diode array detectors for HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) applications in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, environmental, food-beverage, and other industries. The new detector technology is scalable from analytical applications at the earliest research stages to a fraction purification process in a production environment. It also eliminates the need for separate analytical and preparative detectors.
When integrated into an HPLC system, a UV-Vis detector measures the amount of light absorbed by compounds as they elute from an HPLC column and so determines the quantity of each compound analyzed. For each compound, the detector produces a specific signal, or peak. In addition, the new Varian detectors simultaneously monitor absorbance across a broad UV-Vis light spectrum using an array of photodiodes.
The two new detector models consist of 1) a single-array detector for analytical, including microbore, applications and 2) a dual-array detector for analytical to preparative applications. For analytical applications, the single-array detector, with a 1024-diode array and programmable slits, provides an extended wavelength range (190 nm to 950 nm), especially important in areas such as drug discovery and pharmaceutical quality assurance. For chemists involved in compound synthesis and scale-up to production runs, the dual-array detector provides a dual pathlength preparative flow cell.
As with other information-rich detectors used in chromatography, such as mass spectrometers, diode array detectors automatically review multiple spectra across a single peak, to assure the user that the peak is pure and not contaminated with additional compounds emerging from the HPLC column at exactly the same time. The new Varian detectors will also allow the user to confirm purity of both the largest and smallest peaks in a single analysis.