Solid Phase Extraction column is an inevitable tool for those who are dealing with molecular biology and environmental analysis. However, it is becoming increasingly expensive to avail of such a tool, especially in Asian countries. Can any one suggest a method by which one can make an SPE (C18) column in a low cost manner suited to his /her need?
I don't know if a homemade cartridges of regular C18 would be cheaper than commercial ones. Furthermore, you gonna need some part supplies that probably you will buy from some company. Other issue is the repetibility of performance, that the supplier ensures a range of results. Good luck
You can take a look at Bag-SPE! You can make it yourself, it is cheep to make, works well, easy to apply on water samples. Good luck
Actually, you can use polypropylene cartridge (cartridge and C18 are separately available in the market) or column for your experiment. Supelco is one supplier. Important thing is you have to clean properly before re-use. When you refill C-18 material in to the cartridge you have to follow procedure given below.
1 Insert retaining plate to the column and fix to the bottom
2 Fill required quantity of filling material (C18)
3 Insert and fit another retaining plate on the top of the filling material (C18). This is important to prevent the disturbance of filling material (C18)
4 If you need to remove the filling material apply a vacuum at the mouth of the column or push the bottom plate out using a rod.
5 Wash and dry the column
Do you want to synthesize a C-18 material, it will be difficult and uneconomical as it is available. However for preparing a stainless steel column you need a high pressure HPLC pump and a filler in which you can add the slurry of the C-18, attach to a column and then start pump and wait till all material get inside. It is a tedious job we use to do 25 years back, but now every one buys factory prepared columns which are expensive but efficient.
If aqueous sample contains organic matter, which we have to remove remove Ion chromatography analysis, the Metrohm suggested RP C-18 columns. I inquired and found that Sigma C-18 cartridges cost $200 for 50 C-18 filters. Again, I am also interested in preparing own C-18 filter (say dia of 30 mm and depth/thickness of 10 mm may be fine. What do you suggest.
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