Chromasol offers a good range of high-quality HPLC columns. Chromasol CN columns with Cyano (Nitrile) groups bound to the spherical, porous silica surface offer a unique polar selectivity and excellent peak shapes under reversed phase or normal phased conditions for basic and polar analytes. Separation mechanism is based on π–π interactions mode, polar interactions, hydrophobic and hydrogen bonding interactions. The columns are used for the separation and extraction of very polar compounds that would normally adsorb irreversibly to more common polar phases such as silica. While the dipole interactions are operative, the alkyl chains in fact provide certain degree of phase stability in the mobile phase eluents and hydrophobicity to the phase.
The polar Cyano columns are useful for many separations of mixtures consisting of very different components that might have a very broad range of retention times on the usual columns. Common applications based on Cyano phases include the separation of flavonoids, extraction of polar compounds from non-polar samples and analysis of samples containing analytes with a wide range of hydrophobicity. Due to a combination of dipole-dipole interactions and sufficient hydrophobicity, Chromasol CN provides better separation and resolution and enhanced selectivity for steroidal mixtures. Chromasol CN columns are available with two different alkyl spacers and accordingly the Chromasol Brands are Chromasol CN-1 and Chromasol CN-2.