Ion chromatography for the pharmaceutical industry

Ion chromatography (IC) is an analytical technique used to separate and quantify ionic and polar analytes. It’s now widely accepted by the pharmaceutical industry and regulatory bodies for an expanded range of applications like water quality and chemical analysis.

During their modernisation initiative, the US Pharmacopeia-National Formulary (USP), the driving standardisation body for pharmaceutical products, recognised IC’s potential, establishing it as an appropriate and valid technique. The reasoning behind this was to ensure the pharmaceutical industry was integrating well with modern analytical technologies by replacing non-specific tests.

Even though a high-performance liquid chromatography approach is a dominant method in the pharmaceutical industry, IC is growing increasingly popular. This is due to advantages that IC has over other liquid chromatographic or traditional methods.

The ability to separate ions, metals, polar molecules, and even non-ionic polar compounds offers IC users unique advantages. With IC, there is no need for special waste handling, plus the access to multiple detection options significantly widens the field of suitable applications.

IC is a powerful, versatile analytical tool for pharmaceutical applications. It’s capable of handling a wide variety of sample types and provides high sensitivity when detecting ionic and ionisable substances. IC’s ability to couple different detection strategies makes it invaluable in pharmaceutical manufacturing and for quality control.

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