How to Choose Sugar Analysis Column?

Sugar columns, as the name suggests, are the columns for the analysis of separated sugar. In addition to this application, sugar can also serve as a parent, and it plays an important role in industry, especially in the field of biopharmaceuticals. With the development of industry, it has strict requirement of the ratio of the components in the mixed sugar and the purity of the single sugar in industrial production. In order to meet the requirement of preparation and analysis of the sugar substances in the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries (such as starch, cellulose, sugar,pentose, galactose, fiber tang, glucose, mannitol, acetic acid, etc., monosaccharides, glycosylation proteins, etc. The chromatographic techniques are increasingly used for the separation and purification of sugars.

With the development of chromatographic technology, there are more and more chromatographic columns for the analysis of sugars. At present,sulfonation column with polymer matrix and amino silica column are mostly used sugar analysis columns.The polymer sulfonation column is classified as sulfonated hydrogen type, sulfonated calcium type, sodium sulfonate type, etc.

How can we choose the right sugar analysis column?

Calcium columns are the preferred column for general sweetener analysis. It has been optimized for the analysis of monosaccharides and provides separation of disaccharides, trisaccharides and tetrasaccharides. The 300 x 7.8 mm column is primarily used to quantify glucose and fructose in high fructose corn syrup, as well as routine analysis of monosaccharides. The 250 x 4.0 mm column is suitable for sugar alcohol separation.

Lead-type columns are specifically designed to separate cellulose-derived monosaccharides. It is used to analyze pentose and hexose in wood products, especially cellobiose, glucose, xylose, galactose, arabinose and mannose. It also provides a good distinction between sucrose, lactose and fructose in dairy products.

Hydrogen-type columns are used for the analysis of carbohydrates in solutions containing carboxylic acids, volatile fatty acids, short-chain fatty acids, alcohols, ketones, and many neutral metabolic by-products. Most commonly used for organic acid analysis, this column can also be used for fermentation monitoring, biological fluid analysis, and acetylglucosamine separation.

Sodium columns have been optimized for sugar analysis in samples containing high concentrations of salts such as beet sugar. It is compatible with the salt, so the sample does not need to be desalted prior to analysis.

Potassium columns have been optimized for monosaccharide, disaccharide, and trisaccharide analysis in samples such as corn syrup and brewed wort. It separates glucose, maltose and maltotriose very well.

The silver column provides fast, high resolution oligosaccharide analysis. It separates the oligosaccharide (Dp-11) in approximately 25 minutes.

The amino column is generally used for separating various monosaccharides, and it is not suitable to separate an aldehyde group, a carbonyl compound, a reducing sugar, and can be used for separating non-reducing sugars.