Single-Vendor Solutions in Supercritical Fluid Chromatography now Available 

Agilent Technologies Inc have announced it has acquired the assets of Aurora SFC Systems, Inc, a leading provider of supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC) products for laboratory research and analysis. The acquisition includes the Aurora SFC Systems product line as well as intellectual property. Financial details were not disclosed.

Aurora SFC Systems has been a partner to Agilent for the past two years. Aurora’s Fusion A5 platform is embedded into Agilent’s SFC and Hybrid SFC/UHPLC systems, and is also sold as part of an upgrade option to Agilent’s 1100, 1200 and 1260 Series LC systems. Acquiring the Aurora SFC assets now enables Agilent to offer these products as fully integrated, single-vendor SFC solutions.

Supercritical fluid chromatography is a normal phase technique that provides different selectivity compared to reversed phase UHPLC separation. SFC is used for a broad range of applications, including separation of chiral compounds, detection of impurities in pharmaceutical samples, determination of additives and migration products in consumer goods and food packaging or in ASTM methods such as D5186 for the determination of aromatic content in fuels. SFC represents a generic, cost-effective alternative to HPLC, providing results faster and with superior resolution. SFC is also known as a green technique that minimises the consumption of organic solvents and avoids generating large amounts of toxic waste.

“We valued the partnership we had with Aurora SFC Systems and are excited to bring this technology and expertise into Agilent,” said Patrick Kaltenbach, Vice President and General Manager of Agilent’s Liquid Phase Separations Business. “The deployment of orthogonal separation techniques has gained significant importance in liquid phase separations as regulatory agencies increasingly demand comprehensive results.”